Many products are so ubiquitous that we don’t even try to think of where their name originated, but as the tagline says, “haven’t you ever wondered?”  In the old days, product names were obvious as they were either named after the person who invented it, such as the Tesla coil. Alternatively, a product may be named after the function it served, such as Volkswagen, which in German translates to “people’s car”.  However, in the latter part of the 20th century many companies began going to public relations firms to get their products branded.  So how did they come up with the names?

RIM BlackBerry
A naming expert at the firm Lexicon Branding thought the mini buttons on the device looked like the tiny seeds of a strawberry. However, a linguist with the firm thought “straw” was too slow-sounding, so someone else suggested “BlackBerry,” which RIM liked. While the BlackBerry was in development, though, it was called “LeapFrog” because the technology leapfrogged the competition.

Intel Pentium
In the early 1990s, computer processors were named using the number sequence x86, with x being 2,3,4, etc. Although Intel developed the technology, other processor manufacturers would use the same numbering sequence in the naming of their products. Well, when Intel was developing the Pentium processor, which was based on the 586 architecture, they attempted to trademark the number “586″ so that their competitors could not use it. However, the U.S. court system would not allow for the trademark of numbers, so Intel had to begin naming their processors. Naturally, Intel went with Pentium which is a combination of Greek and Latin: pente- is Greek for 5, and -ium is Latin for neutral nouns.

Java Programming Language
Java was originally called “Oak” after an oak tree that was outside creator James Gosling’s window. It became Java later on when the name was chosen at random from a random list. And here I thought it was called Java because programmers needed the caffeine boost.

Apple
I couldn’t put it any better, so here’s a quote from a macrumors forum:

“Steve Jobs had worked during the summer at an apple farm, and admired the Beatles’ record label, Apple. He also believed Apples to be the most perfect fruit. He and Steve Wozniak were trying to figure out a name for their new company, and they decided that if they couldn’t think of one by the end of the day that was better than Apple, they would choose Apple. They couldn’t think of anything better, so on April 1, 1976, Apple Computer, Inc. was born.

But they needed a logo. The first design included Sir Isaac Newton, a tree and a banner that said “Apple Computer.” Jobs decided they needed a less busy logo, one that would signify a brand. The second logo attempt was very similar to the current logo, but without the bite taken out of it. Jobs thought this logo looked too much like an orange. The third attempt was the logo that Apple still uses.”

Courtesy of Sigalakos on Flickr

Google
I’ve gone over this one before

Microsoft Xbox
Similar to the set-top box WebTV, the Microsoft Xbox was meant to be a computer that used a television for a monitor, as opposed to a standard computer monitor. However, unlike WebTV, the Xbox was meant to be a device centered around gaming, but was still based on Microsoft Windows technologies. The basis of Windows gaming is DirectX, hence, the DirectXbox was born. Sorry folks, it had nothing to do with being extreme:

As you can see, the motivations for naming these products varies. Come back tomorrow, for the rest of the list. Until then, check out the following book for more insight into the brands we buy: