We recently introduced another category, Where Did That Come From?, to our growing blog content. Thus far, we’ve shared some interesting data on the origin of organization and product names such as 7-11, Adidas, Caterpillar, Pepsi, Skype, Coca-Cola, Cadillac, Haagen-Dazs and Apple Computer.

Today, we continue that journey by exploring the origins of the following companies: Arby’s, Lego, Starbucks, Toyota, and REO.

Arby’s

Arby’s is a fast food restaurant chain in the U.S. and Canada that is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Wendy’s/Arby’s Group. It is primarily known for selling roast beef sandwiches and curly fries. There are currently 3,688 Arby’s restaurants … 1,106 stores-owned by corporate and 2,582 Arby’s restaurants owned by 462 franchisees. T.J. Cinnamons and Pasta Connections are also part of this subsidiary.

Arby’s evolved from the enunciation of the initials of its founders, the Raffel Brothers. The partners wanted to use the name Big Tex but were unsuccessful in negotiating with the Akron businessman who was already using the name. So they came up with Arby’s, which stands for R.B., the initials of Raffel Brothers, although many customers think the initials stand for roast beef.

Lego

Lego is a line of construction toys manufactured by the Lego Group based in Billund, Denmark. The company’s flagship product, Lego, consists of colorful interlocking plastic bricks and an accompanying array of gears, mini-figures and various other parts. The toys were originally designed in the 1940s in Europe and have achieved an international appeal, which has led to the development of an extensive subculture that supports Lego movies, games, competitions, and four Lego-themed amusement parks around the world.

The word “Lego” comes from the Danish “leg godt”, which means to “play well.” Lego also means “I put together” in Latin, but Lego Group claims this is only a coincidence. Years before the little plastic brick was invented, Lego manufactured wooden toys.

Starbucks Corporation

Starbucks Corporation is an international coffee and coffeehouse chain based in Seattle, Washington. Starbucks is the largest coffeehouse company in the world with 16,635 stores in 49 countries. Starbucks also sells snacks, and items such as mugs and coffee beans and also markets books, music, and film. Starbucks-brand ice cream and coffee are also offered at grocery stores.

Starbucks was named after Starbuck, a character in Herman Melville’s novel Moby-Dick.

Toyota Motor Corporation

Toyota Motor Corporation commonly known simply as Toyota, is a multinational corporation headquartered in Japan and the world’s largest automaker by sales. Toyota employs approximately 320,808 people worldwide.

The company was founded by Kiichiro Toyoda in 1937 as a spinoff from his father’s company Toyota Industries to create automobiles. The company includes 522 subsidiaries. In addition to manufacturing automobiles, Toyota provides financial services and also builds robots and is one of the largest conglomerates in the world.

Toyota was initially called Toyeda but was changed after a contest for a better-sounding name. The new name was written in katakana with eight strokes, a number that is considered lucky in Japan.

REO Motor Car Company

The REO Motor Car Company, initiated by Ransom E. Olds, was a Lansing, Michigan, based company that produced automobiles and trucks from 1905 to 1975. At one point the company also manufactured buses on its truck platforms.

Originally, the company was to be called “R. E. Olds Motor Car Company but later was shortened to REO and was pronounced “rio.” (Note: The band REO Speedwagon took its name from the REO manufactured REO Speed Wagon light delivery truck, an ancestor of pickup trucks.

About Harry K. Jones

Harry K. Jones is a motivational speaker and consultant for AchieveMax®, Inc., a company of professional speakers who provide custom-designed seminars, keynote presentations, and consulting services. Harry's top requested topics include change management, customer service, creativity, employee retention, goal setting, leadership, stress management, teamwork, and time management. For more information on Harry's presentations, please call 800-886-2629 or fill out our contact form.

• Mail
|
• Web
|
• Twitter
|
• Facebook
|
• LinkedIn
|
• More Posts(619)

We recently introduced another category, Where Did That Come From?, to our growing blog content. In that opening article, we shared some interesting data on the origin of organization and product names such as 7-11, Adidas, Caterpiller, Pepsi and Skype.

Today, we continue that journey by exploring the origins of the following companies: Apple, Cadillac, Coca-Cola, Haagen-Dazs, and Lego.

• Cadillac is a luxury vehicle marque owned by General Motors Company. Cadillac vehicles are sold in more than 50 countries and territories but mainly in North America. Founded in 1902 as the Cadillac Automobile Company, it was purchased in 1909 by General Motors and over the next 30 years established itself as America’s premier luxury car. It was named after the 18th century French explorer Antoine Laumet de La Mothe, sieur de Cadillac, founder of Detroit, Michigan.
• The Coca-Cola Company is the world’s largest beverage company, largest manufacturer, distributor and marketer of non-alcoholic beverage concentrates and syrups in the world and is one of the largest corporations in the United States. The company is best known for its flagship product Coca-Cola, invented by pharmacist John Stith Pemberton in 1886. Besides its namesake Coca-Cola beverage, Coca-Cola currently offers nearly 400 brands in more than 200 countries or territories and serves 1.5 billion servings each day. The beverage is derived from the coca leaves and kola nuts used as flavoring. Creator Pemberton changed the “K” of kola to “C” to make the name look better.
• Despite the foreign-sounding name, Häagen-Dazs ice cream was established by Polish immigrants Reuben and Rose Mattus in the Bronx, New York, in 1961. Starting with just three flavors (vanilla, chocolate, and coffee), the company opened its first retail store in Brooklyn, New York, in 1976 and then offered franchises throughout the United States and 54 other countries around the world. Today, it offers well over 90 flavors. Häagen-Dazs produces ice cream, ice cream bars, ice cream cakes, sorbet and frozen yogurt. The name was invented in 1961 by ice-cream makers “to convey an aura of the old-world traditions and craftsmanship.” The name actually has no meaning.  The Häagen-Dazs brand is owned by General Mills. However, in the United States and Canada, Häagen-Dazs products are produced by Dreyer’s Grand Ice Cream, Inc., a Nestlé subsidiary, under a pre-existing license.
• Apple Computer was co-founded in 1976 in Culpertino, California, by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniac and Ronald Wayne. A year later Wayne sold his share back to his two partners. Wonder how he feels about that today? The company currently operates more than 250 retail stores in nine countries and an online store where hardware and software products are sold. It boasts more than 35,000 employees worldwide. The company was named for the favorite fruit of co-founder Steve Jobs and/or for the time he worked at an apple orchard as well as to distance itself from the cold, unapproachable, complicated imagery created by other computer companies at the time–which had names such as IBM, DEC, Cincom and Tesseract.

About Harry K. Jones

Harry K. Jones is a motivational speaker and consultant for AchieveMax®, Inc., a company of professional speakers who provide custom-designed seminars, keynote presentations, and consulting services. Harry's top requested topics include change management, customer service, creativity, employee retention, goal setting, leadership, stress management, teamwork, and time management. For more information on Harry's presentations, please call 800-886-2629 or fill out our contact form.

• Mail
|
• Web
|
• Twitter
|
• Facebook
|
• LinkedIn
|
• More Posts(619)

We recently introduced another category to our growing blog content. In that opening article, we shared some interesting data on the origin of organization and product names such as 7-11, Adidas, Caterpillar, Pepsi and Skype.

In listing some of Pepsi’s products, we included Fanta and Sprite in that list. I’m certain Coca Cola didn’t appreciate that error as it takes great pride in boasting both brands as coveted members of its family.

We wouldn’t have realized our mistake if it hadn’t been quickly pointed out by several of our subscribers and regular readers. I’d like to point out that we made that misprint purposely to see if anyone would catch it. I’d like to point that out, but it wouldn’t be true. I simply failed to double-check my source. Congratulations to Dee Brown who was the first person to provide this feedback for us. Although she’s one of our favorite subscribers, she did have an edge over everyone else as she is an Executive Assistant and therefore thoroughly trained for spotting such errors! We’d like to express our deep appreciation for your contribution, Dee, by sending you a check for $10,000. We’d like to. However, I’m afraid you’re going to have to settle for our sincere thanks.

On a serious note, I wanted to share this situation with all of our readers to encourage you to continue to provide your feedback to us. We love hearing from you whether you’re spell-checking, fact-checking, contradicting our commentary, agreeing with our views, or simply sharing your own take on a particular issue. Receiving your feedback, in any form, makes our efforts more than worthwhile. We appreciate the many notes we’ve thus far received from so many of you and encourage others to do the same.

If you haven’t yet subscribed to our daily offering, you can do so by simply providing your e-mail address at the top left-hand side of this page. We’d love to have you join our growing family! Thanks again and we hope to hear from you very soon!

About Harry K. Jones

Harry K. Jones is a motivational speaker and consultant for AchieveMax®, Inc., a company of professional speakers who provide custom-designed seminars, keynote presentations, and consulting services. Harry's top requested topics include change management, customer service, creativity, employee retention, goal setting, leadership, stress management, teamwork, and time management. For more information on Harry's presentations, please call 800-886-2629 or fill out our contact form.

• Mail
|
• Web
|
• Twitter
|
• Facebook
|
• LinkedIn
|
• More Posts(619)

How many times have you wandered through your local shopping mall, noticed some of the crazy store names, and wondered where they came from, if they had any real meaning or if there was an interesting story behind their origins?

I’m certain the same thing has happened when it comes to products, city and state location, landmarks and a number of other things we so often take for granted.

Well, we’re going to start researching all of the areas and see if we can find some interesting facts to share with you from time to time.

Let’s start with some easily recognizable names which we’re all familiar with!

• 7-Eleven is an 83-year-old international convenience store chain with 32,000 stores in 18 countries. Originally known as Southland Ice Company, it was renamed U-Tote’m and finally 7-Eleven to reflect its newly extended hours, 7 a.m. until 11 p.m. Today, of course, it’s open 24/7. Think 7-Eleven will change its name again?
• Adidas is an 85-year-old German-based sports apparel manufacturer including Reebok sportswear, TaylorMade-adidas Golf company, and Rockport shoes. The Adidas name evolved from the founder’s name: Adolf (Adi) Dassler.
• Caterpillar is an 84-year-old U.S.-based corporation known as “the world’s largest manufacturer of construction and mining equipment, diesel and natural gas engines, and industrial gas turbines” commonly referred to simply as CAT. Originally, Holt Tractor Co. merged with Best Tractor Co. in 1925. A company photographer exclaimed aloud that the tracks’ movement of its product resembled a caterpillar moving along the ground. The name stuck.
• Pepsi is the 119-year-old soft drink which includes many Pepsi varieties, Dr. Pepper, Lay’s products and Gatorade. Originally known as “Brad’s Drink,” the company changed its name to Pepsi after the digestive enzyme “pepsin.”
• Skype is a 6-year-old software application that allows users to make voice calls over the Internet. The original concept for the name was Sky-Peer-to-Peer, which morphed into Skyper, then Skype.

About Harry K. Jones

Harry K. Jones is a motivational speaker and consultant for AchieveMax®, Inc., a company of professional speakers who provide custom-designed seminars, keynote presentations, and consulting services. Harry's top requested topics include change management, customer service, creativity, employee retention, goal setting, leadership, stress management, teamwork, and time management. For more information on Harry's presentations, please call 800-886-2629 or fill out our contact form.

• Mail
|
• Web
|
• Twitter
|
• Facebook
|
• LinkedIn
|
• More Posts(619)