List of company name etymologies

This is a list of company names with their name origins explained. Some origins are disputed.

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160over90 - named to reflect the marketing agency's goal of eliciting a human reaction with its campaigns. "160 over 90" is a state of heightened blood pressure.
37 Signals - named after founders watched a Nova episode making reference to 37 unexplained signals found by the SETI Project that are possible signs of intelligent extraterrestrial life.
3Com - Network technology producer, "Computer Communication Compatibility".
3M - Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Company started off by mining the material corundum used to make sandpaper.
7-Eleven - 7-Eleven was founded in 1927 as Tote'm (so called because customers "toted" away their purchases). In 1946, Tote'm became 7-Eleven to reflect the stores' new, extended hours - 7 AM until 11 PM, seven days a week. (The store hours are now different around the world. For example, the 7-Eleven stores in Hong Kong operate 24 hours a day.)
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ABN AMRO - In the 1960s, the Nederlandse Handelmaatschappij (Dutch Trading Society; 1824) and the Twentsche Bank merged to form the Algemene Bank Nederland (ABN; General Bank of the Netherlands). In 1966, the Amsterdamsche Bank and the Rotterdamsche Bank merged to form the Amro Bank. In 1991, ABN and Amro Bank merged to form ABN AMRO.
Accenture - Accent on the Future. Greater-than 'accent' over the logo's t points forward towards the future. The name Accenture 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.
Adecco - Formed from the merger of Swiss staffing company "Adia" with French staffing company Ecco.
Adidas - from the name of the founder Adolf (Adi) Dassler.
Adobe - came from name of the river Adobe Creek that ran behind the houses of founders John Warnock and Chuck Geschke.
Ahold - stands for Albert Heijn Holding. The holding was constructed around Albert Heijn supermarkets (founded in 1887). In 1987, Ahold became Royal Ahold. Albert, at the time, didn't catch on to the fact that the name sounded completely like "a-hole" and that this may be a problem.
Alcatel - Société Alsacienne de Constructions Atomiques, de Télécomunications et d'Electronique.
Alcoa - Aluminum Company of America.
Aldi - portmanteau for Albrecht (name of the founders) and discount
Alfa Romeo - The company was originally known as ALFA, which is an acronym meaning Anonima Lombarda Fabbrica Automobili. When Nicola Romeo bought ALFA in 1915, his surname was appended to the company name.
AltaVista - Spanish for "high view".
ALZA - from the name of the founder Alex Zaffaroni.
Amazon.com - Founder Jeff Bezos renamed the company to Amazon (from the earlier name of Cadabra.com) after the world's most voluminous river, the Amazon. He saw the potential for a larger volume of sales in an online bookstore as opposed to the then prevalent bookstores. (Alternative: It is said that Jeff Bezos named his book store Amazon simply to cash in on the popularity of Yahoo at the time. Yahoo listed entries alphabetically, and thus Amazon would always appear above its competitors in the relevant categories it was listed in.)
Ambev - American Beverage Company, the largest Brazilian beverage company and fourth in the world. In 2004 it merged with Interbrew to create Inbev
AMD - Advanced Micro Devices
AMOCO - AMerican Oil COmpany - now part of BP
Amstrad - Amstrad Consumer Electronics plc was founded by Sir Alan Michael Sugar in the UK. The name is a contraction of Alan Michael Sugar TRADing.
Apache - The name was chosen from respect for the Native American Indian tribe of Apache (Indé), well-known for their superior skills in warfare strategy and their inexhaustible endurance. Secondarily, and more popularly (though incorrectly) accepted, it's considered a cute name that stuck: its founders got started by applying patches to code written for NCSA's httpd daemon. The result was 'a patchy' server - thus the name Apache.
Apple - for the favourite fruit of co-founder Steve Jobs and/or for the time he worked at an apple orchard. He was three months late in filing a name for the business, and he threatened to call his company Apple Computer if his colleagues didn't suggest a better name by 5 p.m. Apple's
Arby's - the enunciation of the acronym of its founders-Raffel Brothers. The partners wanted to use the name "Big Tex," but were unsuccessful in negotiating with the Akron businessman who was already using the name. So, in the words of Forrest, "We came up with Arby's, which stands for R.B., the initials of Raffel Brothers, although I guess customers might think the initials stand for roast beef."