Quiz Of The Week: What’s In A Name?

Coming up with a winning technology idea is hard enough, but could you come up with a name which properly embodied it?

The tech industry is awash with mysterious names. Everyone knows that the three letters of IBM stand for International Business Machines, but what about EMC or SAP?  And where did Google get its name from? For every company there is a name, and for every name there is a story

Your name was what?

When new, tech names often seem strange or unwieldy, but they rapidly become part of our mental furniture, unconsidered alongside the strange names of rock groups and TV shows.

Look at it objectively, if the Roman Catholic Church has room for a Cardinal Sin, then the tech industry can’t object to a GoDaddy, a Wii or a Fark. In fact, they are worth celebrating.

But we’re not looking at stupid startup names. We’re looking at the big and respected firms who were able to take a bet in their early days on a joke, a pun or a crazy acronym.

Why do tech giants have the names they have?

Try our quiz!

It’s compiled by Eric Doyle, editor of ChannelBiz, with help from Peter Judge.

If you like it, we have lots more….