🔍 Google: The Search Engine That Almost Sounded Like a Spa Treatment

Back in the mid-1990s, two Stanford students, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, built an early search engine that analyzed web pages based on their backlinks. In a nod to that method, they gave it the rather unusual name “BackRub.” While clever, the name sounded more like a massage app than an internet tool. Thankfully, it was soon replaced with “Google,” inspired by googol—a term for the number 1 followed by 100 zeros—reflecting the company’s aim to organize vast amounts of information. The math term itself was coined in the 1920s by a young boy helping his mathematician uncle come up with a name for an unimaginably large number.

👟 Nike: The Global Sports Brand Once Known as Blue Ribbon Sports

Long before the swoosh became a symbol of athletic excellence, Nike operated under the name “Blue Ribbon Sports.” Founded in 1964 by University of Oregon coach Bill Bowerman and his former student Phil Knight, the company initially acted as a U.S. distributor for Onitsuka Tiger running shoes. It wasn’t until 1971, as they launched their own shoe line, that they rushed to rename the business. Options like “Dimension Six” and “Peregrine” were tossed around, but it was the company’s first employee who suggested “Nike,” after the Greek goddess of victory. Knight wasn’t thrilled, but he went with it—and the rest is marketing history.

📦 Amazon: Nearly Named 'Relentless' (And Still Kind of Is)

When Jeff Bezos set out to build the world’s largest online bookstore in the mid-1990s, his first name choice was “Relentless.” In fact, you can still type relentless.com into your browser and be redirected to Amazon. Another early contender, “Cadabra,” was scrapped after it was misheard as “cadaver”—not the best vibe for a retail platform. Eventually, “Amazon” was chosen, invoking the scale and reach of the massive South American river, while also securing a spot near the top of alphabetical listings in early search directories.

🍏 Snapple: From Health Food Store Favorite to Snappy Apple Icon

In the 1970s, a small juice company in New York began selling natural products under the clunky name “Unadulterated Food Products.” It was pure and descriptive, but hardly catchy. Things changed in 1980 when the company introduced a fizzy apple juice with a crisp bite and renamed itself Snapple, a blend of “snappy” and “apple.” The playful name stuck—and the brand became a household name.

🍬 Starburst: A Cosmic Upgrade from “Opal Fruits”

Before becoming a favorite candy in American lunchboxes, Starburst debuted in the UK under the more elegant name “Opal Fruits.” When the candy crossed the Atlantic in 1967, it was rebranded as Starburst—likely to ride the wave of space-themed marketing during the height of the Space Race. While the U.K. later adopted the Starburst name permanently in 1998, the original “Opal Fruits” branding made a nostalgic comeback in 2020.

💧 Vaseline: Once Sold as “Wonder Jelly”

In the 1800s, a curious chemist named Robert Chesebrough noticed oil workers in Pennsylvania using a sticky substance to heal burns and cuts. Fascinated, he refined the material—originally called “rod wax”—into a smoother jelly and began selling it as “Wonder Jelly.” Just two years later, in 1872, he rebranded it as Vaseline, blending the German word wasser (water) and the Greek word oleon (oil). Today, it remains a staple in medicine cabinets around the world.

It’s hard to imagine searching the web with BackRub, ordering a package from Relentless, or moisturizing with Wonder Jelly—but these odd beginnings are proof that great branding is often a journey.

🚀 From “BackRub” to Google: Strange Original Names of

The Biggest Brands Today

Many of the world’s most recognized companies weren’t always known by the names we know today. Some began with branding choices that now seem quirky, odd, or even unintentionally hilarious. Here are a few surprising name origins behind the brands that have shaped modern life: