How the Company Got Its Name, Part 2 Quiz

Answer: cocaine

From 1886 until 1903, Coca-Cola did contain levels of cocaine. In 1904, Coca-Cola began using "spent" coca leaves that have all but very trace amounts of cocaine removed. Coca-Cola gets its cocaine-free coca extract from the Stepan Company. Their Maywood NJ facility is the only US site legally allowed to import coca plants. The cocaine is removed and sold to the Mallinckrodt company for medicinal use.

While carbon dioxide is used to make the carbonated beverage, that component is not the source of the "coca" in the name.

Answer: the names of the two founders

Mattel was founded in 1945 by Harold "Matt" Matson and Elliot Handler as a company that made picture frames. They made dollhouse furniture from picture frame scraps, which turned out to be more profitable than the frames themselves, and the company reinvented itself as a toy maker. Two of Mattel's most famous products, Barbie and Ken, are named after Handler's children.

Answer: Government Employees Insurance Company

Leo and Lillian Goodwin founded GEICO in 1936, on the assumption that insuring government employees would involve less risk than insuring the general population. One of its popular advertising campaigns uses an anthropomorphic Day Gecko as a company spokesperson.

Answer: his daughter

Rex David Thomas (1932-2002) had five children with his wife Lorraine, and Wendy was his youngest daughter Melinda's nickname. He never knew his birth mother, and was adopted as an infant by Rex and Auleva Thomas.

Bonus company name fact: In 2008, Wendy's merged with Triarc, the parent company of Arby's, and the new company name was Wendy's/Arby's Group. Arby's gets it name from its founders, Forrest and Leroy Raffel. "Arby's" stands for "R. B." for "Raffel Brothers" (not for the restaurant's signature roast beef sandwiches).

Answer: National Biscuit Company

Founded in 1898 after the merger of the New York Biscuit Company and the American Biscuit & Manufacturing Company, the National Biscuit Company wasn't officially known as Nabisco until 1971. As a subsidiary of Kraft Foods since 2007, many Nabisco products are sold under the Kraft brand in other countries outside of the US.

In Canada, Nabisco cookies are sold under the Christie brand, after a Canadian bakery Nabisco acquired in 1928.

Answer: whiz-kid

In 1958, Akio Morita (1921-1999) and Masaru Ibuka (1908-1997) renamed their company from Tokyo Tsushin Kogyo Kabushiki Kaisha (Tokyo Telecommunications Engineering Corporation) to the Sony Corporation. At the time, the slang term "sonny-boy" implied a smart young man, a "whiz-kid," which is how they saw themselves and their company.

The term "sonny" was also used as a familiar term for a young boy in the Western culture of the 1950s, which (it was hoped) would make the company seem "friendlier" to the Western customers it hoped to attract.

Answer: Visual & Audio Communications

Originally, Viacom began as CBS Films in 1952. When the Federal Communications Commission implemented the Financial Interest and Syndication Rules in 1970, television networks were not allowed to own syndication companies, CBS Films was spun off as its own company and named Viacom. Those rules were repealed in 1993, and in 1999 Viacom merged with its once-parent company CBS.

In 2005, Viacom and CBS split again, in order to resolve issues between top executives over the direction of the organization, creating two companies that would appeal to different types of investors (high cash/low growth vs. high growth).

Answer: three diamonds

Mitsubishi was founded in 1870 as a shipping company by Yatarô Iwasaki (1834-1885). "Mitsu" means "three" and "hishi" (or "bishi") means "water chestnut"/"water caltrop"/"rhombus"/"diamond" (as in a diamond shape, not the mineral or gemstone).
Bonus company name fact: the Japanese automobile company Subaru gets its name from the Japanese term for the Pleiades star cluster, and uses stars in its logo.

Answer: Lucky Goldstar

In 1947, the Lak-Hui (pronounced "lucky") Chemical Industrial Corp. was founded by Koo In-Hwoi. When the company expanded into electronics, the GoldStar company was created to handle that new business venture. The two companies merged in 1958 to become Lucky GoldStar, which was changed in 1995 to LG.

The company has used "Life's Good" as a slogan, but the slogan came after the company was named.

Answer: friend

Not only did the name "Amiga" make them sound more "user-friendly" (literally), it had the major advantage of appearing before rival companies Apple and Atari when listed alphabetically.
Bonus company name fact: Atari, founded in 1972, was named after a term from the board game Go.