TriviaBug | Quiz on Company Name Origins

Company Name Origins

	Description	Company
*Can you identify how a company got its present name?*
38.	Named from the Biblical character renowned for his strength.	Samsonite
37.	Literally "Light of the gods".	Raytheon
36.	The Japanese translation is disputed, although the Chinese name is three oceans.	Sanyo
35.	After the Latin expression which means something like "new skills".	Novartis
34.	From the Hawaiian word meaning smart or clever; the company defines it as "intelligent, clever and cool".	Akamai
33.	Named after the 18th century French explorer Antoine Laumet de La Mothe, sieur de X, founder of Detroit, Michigan.	Cadillac
32.	Named after its founder, Henri X, who was born in Germany under the name that is German (actually, Swabian diminutive) for "bird's nest".	Nestlé
31.	Named for the Greek goddess of victory.	Nike
30.	The founder says in his autobiography that when they were starting a business to sell records by mail order, "one of the girls suggested: 'What about X? We're complete x's at business.'"	Virgin
29.	From the Latin word which means "I roll".	Volvo
28.	Renamed from "U-Tote'm" in 1946 to reflect their newly extended hours.	7-Eleven
27.	The founder worked at an orchard, and named the company thus to distance itself from the cold, unapproachable, complicated imagery created by other computer companies at the time.	Apple
26.	A composite of the first letters in the Swedish founder's name in addition to the first letters of the names of the property and the village in which he grew up.	IKEA
25.	Connotes the sense of "the present age" or "modernity" in Korean.	Hyundai
24.	From the company's original name, Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Company.	3M
23.	The name roughly translates as "Rising from Asia" in Hanja.	Kia
22.	From the Japanese name for the constellation known to Westerners as Pleiades or the Seven Sisters. X was formed from a merger of seven other companies, and the constellation is featured on the company's logo.	Subaru
21.	From the college nickname of founder, Paul Orfalea. He was called X because he had curly red hair.	Kinko's
20.	The name was suggested by founder George Canova's wife who mistakenly thought that X meant new in French.	Novell
19.	Company founder Kim Woo Chong called it X which means "Great House" or "Great Universe" in Korean.	Daewoo
18.	Alternate spelling of Pelea capreolus, an African antelope.	Reebok
17.	The code name for a CIA project which was designed to use the newly written SQL database language from IBM.	Oracle
16.	From the Latin version of the German name given to a region in North Carolina by German settlers because it reminded them of a river near their home in Germany.	Wachovia
15.	From the German for "people's car".	Volkswagen
14.	Latin translation of the German name 'Horch'. The founder August Horch left the company after five years, but still wanted to manufacture cars. Since the original 'Horch' company was still there, he called his new company thus.	Audi
13.	Spanish for "high view".	Alta Vista
12.	Originally (1933) Precision Optical Instruments Laboratory the new name (1935) derived from the name of the company's product named after the Japanese name of the Buddhist bodhisattva of mercy.	Canon
11.	Named from the board game Go. It is a Japanese word to describe a position where an opponent's stones are in danger of being captured.	Atari
10.	From the name of a district in Frankfurt.	Hoechst
9.	The name X was proposed by a company employee in Norway as part of an internal name finding process (BrandStorming). Prior to January 1, 2001 the company was called Andersen Consulting.	Accenture
8.	This word was invented by Jonathan Swift and used in his book Gulliver's Travels. It represents a person who is repulsive in appearance and barely human. The founders liked it.	Yahoo!
7.	Meaning three stars in Korean.	Samsung
6.	Named after a character in Herman Melville's novel Moby-Dick.	Starbucks
5.	From the creek that ran behind the house of co-founder John Warnock.	Adobe
4.	Mitch Kapor named his company after this yogic position or 'Padmasana'. Kapor used to be a teacher of Transcendental Meditation technique as taught by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi.	Lotus
3.	Named after company co-founder Louis X, a Swiss-born auto racer. The company was merged into General Motors in 1917 and survives only as a brand name.	Chevrolet
2.	Named from the digestive enzyme.	Pepsi
1.	Literally "sunrise" in Japanese.	Hitachi
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