As it’s said: It’s all in the name
Sometimes, your first choice is not always the best one and there’s a scope for improvement. Did you know that many household-name companies actually started out with completely different names? Well, when you look at the original names of some iconic brands, it’s clear some rebranding was important. Here’s a list of some of the biggest brands that started with completely different names. Here’s how and why it happened:
Facemash – Facebook – Meta
In 2003, Facebook began as Facemash at Harvard University. After Mark Zuckerberg violated Harvard’s policy, Facemash was changed and he registered thefacebook.com and the rest is history. In 2005, they decided to drop ‘the’ and then in October 2021 Facebook changed its parent company’s name to Meta to reflect their emphasis on the future, that is, Metaverse.
Matchbox – Tinder
Tinder, an app that changed the way we look at dating started its journey as Matchbox. However, due to another competitor with a similar name, the name was changed to Tinder, which didn’t take much time to gain popularity among the youngsters.
BackRub – Google – Alphabet
Do you have any idea that Google was called BackRub back in the day? Initially, Google used to analyse the importance of backlinks a website had, hence the name. However, later on, they decided to incorporate rapid improvement in the search technology, and hence a name change was necessary. It was supposed to be Googol instead of Google but due to domain availability, they stuck to Google. The name of the parent company was also changed to Alphabet.
Odeo – Twitter
Twitter started as Odeo when it was a podcast and not a microblogging website. Back then, their biggest competitors were iTunes and to resolve that, they came up with Twitter as their new name.
Relentless – Amazon
Try typing relentless.com in your browser and check what happens. If you just tried, you would have noticed that it redirected to amazon.com – That was the original name Jeff Bezos was going with. However, while going through the dictionary, Jeff Bezos came across the word Amazon and he thought the name of earth’s largest river was perfect because he was launching the world’s largest bookstore.
UrbanClap – Urban Company
It didn’t take much time for UrbanClap to become a household name when it comes to providing home services for almost everything you need. In order to launch six new sub-brands and become a globally accepted brand, they decided to change the name to Urban Company in 2020.
Brad’s Drink – Pepsi
Did you know Pepsi was initially called Brad’s Drink based on the name of its creator – Caleb D. Bradham. He concocted the drink in his North Carolina drugstore. He soon realised that the name missed that wow factor. So, five years later, he rebranded the drink as Pepsi-Cola. How did that happen? Well, the word was taken from dyspepsia, which means indigestion. You would know that the drink claims to be good for digestion.
