Words Unravelled with RobWords and Jess Zafarris What was Pepsi originally called? | BRAND NAME ORIGINS
36 snips
Mar 4, 2026 A lively tour of famous brand-name origins and the strange stories behind them. Short histories reveal why IKEA names products by category and how LEGO’s name means "play well" in Danish. Learn why Häagen‑Dazs sounds European but was made up, how Adidas and Aldi arose from founders' names, and why Pepsi, Google, Shell and Rolex have surprising naming backstories.
AI Snips
Chapters
Transcript
Episode notes
Shell Was Named After Seashells
- Shell’s name traces to Marcus Samuel Sr.'s 19th‑century import business selling seashells from the Far East.
- When his sons exported kerosene, they chose Shell as an homage to the family trade.
Amazon Named For Scale And Alphabet
- Amazon started as Cadabra but Jeff Bezos renamed it Amazon to suggest scale and to appear early in alphabetical listings.
- The A‑to‑Z ambition is signaled by the brand and later by the logo arrow.
Google From Backrub To Googol
- Google evolved from Backrub and was intentionally misspelled to reference googol, implying organizing an unimaginably large number of pages.
- 'Google' had prior playful uses in culture before the company adopted it.