So on reading this comment I was like, "oh, I see, Arby's, like RB, roast beef?" Except on looking it up, that's not the explanation! "Arby's" does come from the initials "RB"... but it doesn't stand for "roast beef", it stands for "Raffel brothers"! Rather less obvious.
A fun fact about another well known company - Foxconn. Apparently the founder Terry Gou came up with this name by joining words "fox" and "conn". Fox is an animal he liked and "conn" refers to connectors (which is what the company specialized in in its early days).
Not really explaining autoMATTic. Amazon, "A" is because Jeff wanted it at the top of search. Fox, Dell, Walmart, Disney, all is closer to the example.
I was just thinking about the A thing the other day.
A1 Plumbing, Acme Brick, AAA Home Servicing all the companies named over the years to try and be the first in the phone book.
But phone books have been dead for a long time. And search results aren’t alphabetical. It would be interesting for someone to graph or somehow otherwise show how names have changed in response.
I have seen those occasional pictures of businesses named “(thing) near me” in an attempt to win at Google searches.
Another brother/brother business rivalry, although not involving founders, was Sears and Montgomery Ward from 1985-1990. In 1985 Bernard Brennan become CEO of Montgomery Ward and in that same year his older brother Edward Brennan become CEO of Sears.
Chicago-based Sears was the largest US retailer at the time, and Chicago-based Montgomery Ward was the 5th largest.
Kumail Nanjiani learning what Automattic is: https://youtu.be/5Y64UeNeiOM?t=74
It took me quite a while to "get" the "Arby's" restaurant name.
So on reading this comment I was like, "oh, I see, Arby's, like RB, roast beef?" Except on looking it up, that's not the explanation! "Arby's" does come from the initials "RB"... but it doesn't stand for "roast beef", it stands for "Raffel brothers"! Rather less obvious.
Tangential, but I have no idea who is eating at Arby’s. The food looks positively vile from the advertisements.
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A fun fact about another well known company - Foxconn. Apparently the founder Terry Gou came up with this name by joining words "fox" and "conn". Fox is an animal he liked and "conn" refers to connectors (which is what the company specialized in in its early days).
Not really explaining autoMATTic. Amazon, "A" is because Jeff wanted it at the top of search. Fox, Dell, Walmart, Disney, all is closer to the example.
I was just thinking about the A thing the other day.
A1 Plumbing, Acme Brick, AAA Home Servicing all the companies named over the years to try and be the first in the phone book.
But phone books have been dead for a long time. And search results aren’t alphabetical. It would be interesting for someone to graph or somehow otherwise show how names have changed in response.
I have seen those occasional pictures of businesses named “(thing) near me” in an attempt to win at Google searches.
Same with Taco Bell
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Did you know that Adidas was founded by Adolf "Adi" Dassler?
And Puma by his brother Rudi, in the same town. Great Feud story.
Another brother/brother business rivalry, although not involving founders, was Sears and Montgomery Ward from 1985-1990. In 1985 Bernard Brennan become CEO of Montgomery Ward and in that same year his older brother Edward Brennan become CEO of Sears.
Chicago-based Sears was the largest US retailer at the time, and Chicago-based Montgomery Ward was the 5th largest.
Rudidas would definitely be a worse name. Though I'd be surprised if an Amazon Marketplace knockoff brand is not already using it.
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Similar thing with Aldi. Both brothers kept the name, sort of.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aldi#Split
all day i diss another sibling
Imagine how glad they were at some point that they didn’t go with “Adolf’s Sneakers”!