Wendy’s: The first “Wendy’s Old
Fashioned Hamburgers” was opened on November 15, 1969; the
restaurant being named after the fourth child, Melinda Lou Thomas,
of founder Dave Thomas (who incidentally was a high school dropout
and before founding Wendy’s helped stop Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC)
from going out of business.) You might be asking yourself, “How do
you get ‘Wendy’ out of Melinda Lou Thomas?” This was a nickname
given to her as she couldn’t pronounce her own name when she was
young, instead she would say “Wenda”, which is how she got the
nickname “Wendy”.
Arby’s: Although some people believe that the enunciation of Arby’s
stands for “roast beef”, this isn’t true. It actually comes from the
initials of its founders, the Raffel Brothers (R.B.’s). They
originally planned to name their company “Big Tex”, but someone
already owned the rights to that name.
eBay: The company was originally supposed to be “Echo Bay Technology
Group”, but the domain “EchoBay.com” was already taken, so they
shortened it and got eBay.com, which was available.
Starbucks: Not many companies dive into the world of fiction
literature to find inspiration for their brand, but Starbucks is not
just any company. Its name comes from a character in the story of
Moby Dick.
Nintendo: This famous company name comes from the Japanese name
“Nintendou”. Roughly translated “Nin” means “entrusted” and
“ten-dou” means “heaven”, so basically “leave luck to heaven”. If
this seems a strange name/slogan for a company, perhaps it’s
important to note it started out as a playing card making company in
1889.