Famous Organization Names and Where They Came From

Yahoo!
The word was invented by Jonathan Swift and
used in his book Gulliver’s Travels. It represents
a person who is repulsive in appearance and
action and is barely human. Yahoo! founders
Jerry Yang and David Filo selected the name
because they considered themselves yahoos.

Xerox
The Greek root "xer" means dry. The inventor,
Chestor Carlson, named his product Xerox as
it was dry copying, markedly different from
the then prevailing wet copying.

Sony
From the Latin word ’sonus’ meaning sound,
and ’sonny’ a slang used by Americans to refer
to a bright youngster.

Oracle
Larry Ellison and Bob Oats were working on
a consulting project for the Central
Intelligence Agency (CIA). The code name for
the project was called Oracle (the CIA saw
this as the system to give answers to all
questions or something such).

Microsoft
It was coined by Bill Gates to represent the
company that was devoted to
MICROcomputer SOFTware. Originally
christened Micro-Soft, the ’-’ was removed
later on.

Intel
Bob Noyce and Gordon Moore wanted to
name their new company ’Moore Noyce’ but
that was already trademarked by a hotel chain,
so they had to settle for an acronym of
INTegrated ELectronics.