James Archer over at Forty, wrote a great compilation post showing “Where Company Names Come From.”

I thought it was very interesting and a good follow-up to my Branding Made Easy, and Cheap post.

A few of my personal favorites from James’ list:

Audi: Latin translation of the German name ‘Horch’. The founder August Horch left the company after five years, but still wanted to manufacture cars. Since the original ‘Horch’ company was still there, he called his new company Audi, the Latin form of his last name. In English it is: “hark!�.

eBay: Pierre Omidyar, who had created the Auction Web trading website, had formed a web consulting concern called Echo Bay Technology Group. “Echo Bay� didn’t refer to the town in Nevada, “It just sounded cool,� Omidyar reportedly said. Echo Bay Mines Limited, a gold mining company, had already taken EchoBay.com, so Omidyar registered what (at the time) he thought was the second best name: eBay.com.

Mercedes: from the first name of the daughter of Emil Jellinek, who distributed cars of the early Daimler company around 1900.

Six Apart: company co-founders Ben and Mena Trott were born six days apart (in September 1977).

Virgin:Founder Richard Branson’s first company sold records by mail order. He and his friends chose the name Virgin Records as they were all virgins when it came to business