Our lives are full of brand names and trademarked products that we use every day, from the Apple computer I turn on every morning to the bowl of Quaker oatmeal I eat for breakfast. At the birth of every company that makes a product we can’t live without, somebody trying to come up with a memorable and successful name was present. Many of us know that a real Ben and Jerry, Wendy, and Ford exist, but the funny-hatted man on my oatmeal box is a figment of the founders’ imagination, thought to evoke images of honesty and value. Although many brand names are simple acronyms or versions of their founders’ names, some of the companies we trust every day actually have fascinating—and surprising—back stories.
Starbucks
It seems fitting that the most famous coffee brand in the world would take its name from one of the world’s greatest works of literature. In his book Pour Your Heart into It: How Starbucks Built a Company One Cup at a Time, original owner and current CEO Howard Schultz revealed that the inspiration for the name of the coffeehouse came from Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick. The founders’ original idea was to name the company after Captain Ahab’s ship itself, but they eventually decided that Pequod wasn’t a great name for coffee, so they chose Ahab’s first mate, Starbuck, as a namesake instead.
Kinko’s
In 1970, a man named Paul Orfalea decided to open a small copy shop near the University of California, Santa Barbara, to help college students save money on paper and printing costs. He named his shop Kinko’s after his own nickname, which his friends gave him because of his thick, curly red hair.
Chef Boyardee
There may not have been a real Betty Crocker or Aunt Jemima, but there was a real Chef Boyardee. Hector Boiardi emigrated from Italy to the U.S. in 1898 and found work in the kitchens of New York’s Plaza Hotel. In 1929, he opened his own restaurant, Il Giardino d’Italia, in Cleveland, where he also sold ready-made portions of his famous pasta sauce. He adopted the spelling Boyardee to make it easier for patrons to pronounce his name, and when he sold his business, the name stuck. The new owners kept his picture on the label, too.
