Amazon is now a global giant, a sprawling company that sells everything, everywhere, all the time. So omnipresent that we almost forget that its name is also that of the world's largest river. So why did Jeff Bezos choose this name?
Amazon's very first name? Cadabra!
Well yes, hard to believe, but at the very beginning, Amazon wasn't called Amazon. When Jeff Bezos arrived in Seattle in 1994 with a revolutionary idea for an online bookstore, he officially created a company called "Cadabra, Inc."
Why this name? According to the book The Everything Store Brad Stone's "Cadabra" is a nod to the magic word "abracadabra," suggesting that the site would have something magical about it. A fluid, fast, almost supernatural experience... In short, a bit like pulling a rabbit out of a hat, but in an e-commerce version.
But the name wouldn't last long. A few weeks later, his lawyer thought he heard "cadaver" during a phone conversation. The misunderstanding was so chilling that Bezos decided to immediately rename the company.
Why did Jeff Bezos choose the name Amazon?
Before coming across "Amazon," Jeff Bezos and his wife were attracted to relentless.com (relentless, relentless in French), but it sounded too aggressive. Browse.com (browse, leaf through) was another option considered.
But back when Google wasn't the all-powerful search engine, ranking high in the alphabetically ordered website directories was a smart move. To find the perfect title, the founder adopted a simple method: flipping through the dictionary. AThis led Bezos to consider awake.com, and then another name, "Aard."
By the way, for the record, awake.com et relentless.com always redirect to the Amazon site.
He finally stops on Amazon, an exotic-sounding term, a symbol of grandeur and power. The parallel works: just as the Amazon River towers over its peers, Bezos dreams of making his site the largest bookstore in the world. On November 1, 1994, the domain Amazon.com is officially filed.
The power of a well-chosen name
Bezos understood very early on that branding would be essential for his business, especially on the internet where a website's name is the first impression you make. Today, Jeff Bezos' company sells everything from books to robot vacuum cleaners, from cat food to cloud services. But deep down, this dream of a giant bookstore is still very much alive – selling books remains a significant part of their business.
So, does the name " Amazon » contributed to the company's success? It's hard to say, but it's clear that a good name, it helps to make an impressionWe could easily have ended up ordering power banks from Cadabra.com and reading our eBooks on a Cadabra Kindle.
