How 30 Big Companies Got Their Names

11. Sega:

Service Games of Japan was founded by Marty Bromley (an American) to import pinball games to Japan for use on American military bases.

12. Nissan:

the company was earlier known by the name Nippon Sangyo which means “Japan Industries”.

13. Sharp:

Japanese consumer electronics company named from its first product, an ever-sharp pencil.

14. Sony:

from the Latin word ‘sonus’ meaning sound, and ‘sonny’ a slang word used by Americans to refer to a bright youngster, “since we were sonny boys working in sound and vision”, said Akio Morita. The company was founded as Tokyo Tsoshiu Kogyo KK (Tokyo Telecommunications Engineering Corporation) in 1946 and changed its name to Sony in 1958. Sony was chosen as it could be pronounced easily in many languages.

15. Reebok:

alternate spelling of rhebok (Pelea capreolus), an African antelope.

16. Nokia:

started as a wood-pulp mill, the company expanded into producing rubber products in the Finnish city of Nokia. The company later adopted the city’s name.

17. Nintendo:

Nintendo is the transliteration of the company’s Japanese name, nintendou (任天堂). The first (nin) can be translated as to “entrusted”; ten-dou means “heaven”.

18. Verizon:

a union of veritas (Latin for truth) and horizon.

19. Virgin:

founder Richard Branson started a magazine called Student while still at school. In his autobiography, Losing My Virginity, Branson says that when they were starting a business to sell records by mail order, “one of the girls suggested: ‘What about Virgin? We’re complete virgins at business.’