Keeping track of the millions of companies around the world is hard and selecting a suitable brand name for a company is even harder. As a startup, you want to bring the latest cutting-edge technology, and you want the name you have chosen to be associated with it.
However, some may argue that the brand name isn’t as important as the company’s success. Take Apple for example, before 1976, the name was a regular day-to-day fruit.
45 years later, the name is associated with one of the highest valued companies in the globe. What’s funny, however, is that kids these days might play with an iPad before they get to eat an actual apple, bringing a sort of chicken vs egg conundrum.
But away from all that, how did all these names come about, what’s the backstory?
Well, for our beloved Samsung, Lee-Jae Yong must have been into Astrology since it means “three stars” in Korean. This also explains why Samsung is so invested in the Galaxy name for their flagship phones. The name was supposed to represent something “big, numerous, powerful and everlasting” just like stars in the sky.
Samsung’s biggest competitor, Apple, is probably the most known origin story of them all. Steve Job’s biography says he was on a fruit diet and he thought the name sounded “fun, spirited and not intimidating”. Today, Apple is rich and very intimidating.
Fun fact about Nokia is that it didn’t start as a smartphone company but it was originally a paper mill factory. Yes, that’s right, they turned timber and wood chips into grocery bags and cereal boxes.
In the search for better water flow necessary for the mill in 1896, they settled on the banks of the Nokianvirta river in Finland which became the inspiration for the smartphone maker we know today.
Sailing to the Island in Japan, the name Sony was a combination of two words. “Sonus” meaning the root of sonic and sound in Latin and “sonny” meaning young boy in the 1950s American slang.
Sony has a long background story but it initially started as Tokyo Tsushin Kogyo (T.T.K). They eventually decided to give the name up since it belonged to the railway company Tokyo Kyuko. So, they settled for Sony and have branded their products with the name since 1955.
Huawei started from humble beginnings like Apple and was founded in a small apartment in Shenzen selling telecoms to the locals in the Chinese market. Later, they won a government contract to supply telecoms for the People’s Liberation Army and the rest is history.
The Company’s founder Ren Zhengfei said he was inspired by a slogan he saw on a wall. It was phrased “Zhonghua youwei” which translates into ‘promising China’ or ‘China is able.’ Years later, Huawei is still promising with the P50 series and able to carry on despite setbacks like the US trade ban.
And last but not least we have Xiaomi. Xiaomi actually stands for millet but the CEO links the name “Xiao” to a Buddhist concept that ‘a single grain of rice to a Buddhist is as great as a mountain’. The ‘mi’ is an acronym for mobile internet.
Courtesy; phonearena.com
The name Suggested Xiaomi can grow to become as big as the rest and it has with some great smartphones like the Redmi Note 10 and 10 Pro.
Next; Samsung is reportedly working on an entry-level 5G smartphone, the Galaxy A22 5G
Alfred Gitonga is a passionate tech news writer with a deep interest in smartphones and related technologies. He is a staff writer at Mobitrends.co.ke.
