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Yahoo! -

When it was first created, Yahoo! was officially named Jerry and David's Guide to the World Wide Web. Jerry and David were the names of the two Stanford students who came up with the search engine, but they decided to switch to something a little more concise in 1995.

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Yahoo! -

They changed the name to Yahoo! which seems like a big compromise, but it's actually an acronym for "Yet Another Hierarchical Officious Oracle."

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Playboy - Hugh Hefner launched his racy magazine back in 1953 under the name Stag Party, but he received a cease and desist letter from another men's magazine called Stag just before going to print. He considered other names like Top Hat, Bachelor, Gent, Satyr, and Pan, but eventually he settled on Playboy.

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Best Buy -

Best Buy founder Richard Schulze started out selling stereo equipment from his store called Sound of Music. Disaster struck in 1981 when a tornado literally ripped the roof off his store!

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Best Buy -

Schulze moved all of the remaining goods out in the parking lot for a two-day sale so customers could get the best buys from the wreckage. He made more money in those two days than ever before, so the name Best Buy stuck!

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Livestrong -

The Lance Armstrong Foundation was founded in 1997 following Armstrong's testicular cancer diagnosis. It was a charity organization that aimed to raise money for cancer research.

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Livestrong -

After years of rumors and investigations, it was finally confirmed in 2012 that the seven-time Tour de France champion had been doping. He was stripped of his titles, banned from professional cycling, and the foundation changed their name to Livestrong in an effort to separate themselves from the scandal.

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WW -

After 55 years in business, the weight management company Weight Watchers changed its name to WW in 2018. The decision came at a time when weight loss and diet culture had started to change and become a taboo subject. The brand tried to pivot in a direction more aligned with wellness and body positivity.

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Amazon - Jeff Bezos originally thought that Relentless was a good name for his fast-growing business. Friends warned him that it sounded a bit sinister, so he tried out a few other names like Awake, Bookmail, Browse, and Cadabra. He landed on Amazon because it suggested a large volume, and it started with the letter 'A.' This was handy in a time when websites were listed alphabetically!

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Pepsi - Pepsi was invented by a pharmacist in North Carolina in 1893. He came up with the unusual drink and it was an instant hit. He called it Brad's Drink, even though Brad wasn't his name. He decided to change the name to Pepsi-Cola in 1898 because he believed the drink had health benefits and helped with indigestion, also known as dyspepsia.

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Google - Google, perhaps the most famous company in the world, started out with a pretty creepy name. The search engine was originally called BackRub, referencing the way it analyzed the internet's "back links" to determine the relevance of each website. The name lasted less than a year, and they became Google in 1997.

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Subway - Subway was founded way back in 1965, but back then it was called Pete's Super Submarines. The name didn't exactly roll off the tongue and was often misheard as "pizza submarines," so they changed it to Subway in 1968.

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Dell - Michael Dell was a pre-med student at the University of Texas when he started creating his company PC’s Limited out of his dorm room. Within a year, he dropped out of college to pursue the business and renamed the company after himself.

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Netflix - In 2011, Netflix decided to try to separate their DVD rental and streaming services by splitting them into two different companies. The DVD rental section would be called Qwikster and came with a 60% price increase in the service! Unsurprisingly, the plan backfired, and they reversed the decision within a few weeks.

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7-Eleven -

The famous convenience store franchise 7-Eleven was originally called Tote'm. This was supposedly in reference to the way customers toted away their purchases. Some Alaskan branches even put Totem poles outside their stores. It was changed to 7-Eleven in 1946, simply to reflect their opening hours.

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Nike - The Nike brand started out as Blue Ribbon Sports in 1963. At that time they didn't make shoes, but simply distributed them for other producers. When they decided to start producing their own shoes, they wanted to refresh the brand. They decided to name it Nike after the Greek goddess of victory.

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Tinder - The dating app Tinder was founded in 2012 under the name Matchbox. The founders wanted a name that played on the idea of fire and sparks flying, given the nature of the service. However, they felt that Matchbox wasn't quite right and searched for an alternative. Tinder struck the perfect balance.

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Intel Security -

Intel Security took over the well-known anti-virus software brand McAfee and was happy to get rid of that name. The founder, John McAfee, was an eccentric and controversial figure who lost his fortune and ended his life disgraced and wanted by the police.

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Snapple -

Snapple was originally founded to sell natural juice drinks to health food stores. The company called themselves Unadulterated Food Products, which was practical, but not particularly catchy! One of their popular drinks was advertised for its "snappy apple taste,” which eventually worked its way into the name.

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Tribune Publishing Co. -

Tribune Publishing Co. is the owner of newspapers like the Chicago Tribune and the Los Angeles Times. The company changed its name to Tronc in 2016, supposedly to avoid confusion with the company Tribune Media and to mark their alignment with modern media. The name change did not take, and they switched it back to Tribune Publishing Co. within a couple of years. Good choice!

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Target -

Target was born at the beginning of the 20th century when a man named George D. Dayton bought a company that he renamed the Dayton Dry Goods Company. It carried on with this name for half a century before they created a discount chain named Target in 1962. Target became their core business and the company officially renamed itself the Target Corporation in 2000.

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Electronic Arts -

Electronic Arts was created as an offshoot of Apple, but when it was first created in 1983 they simply called it Amazin’ Software. As video games grew in popularity and complexity, they decided to give the brand a more serious name that reflected the medium's increasing status as an art form.

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Clorox -

Clorox was founded in 1913 by the Electro-alkaline Company and was intended for industrial use. Users started to refer to the cleaning agent by combining the names of the two main ingredients–chlorine and sodium hydroxide. This led to the name Clorox, which the company officially adopted in 1922.

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WWE -

The World Wrestling Federation, better know as the WWF, changed its name in 2002 due to a trademark violation! They happened to have the same initials as the World Wildlife Fund, who decided to sue the World Wrestling Federation for the rights to the name.

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WWE -

The World Wildlife Fund won, and WWF became WWE, or World Wrestling Entertainment.

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AirTran Airways -

A low-cost airline called ValuJet made headlines in 1996 following a terrible tragedy. A flight of 110 people crashed in Florida leaving no survivors. They were accused of knowingly flying unsafe planes and were grounded for several months by the FAA. The company later acquired a smaller airline, AirTran Airways, and started using its name to move away from the scandal.

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American Outdoor Brands Corporation -

This brand used to be called Smith & Wesson Holding, the parent company of the well-known Smith & Wesson firearms brand. They decided to change their name and expand into other outdoor sports to stabilize their market value.

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American Outdoor Brands Corporation -

The gun market can be extremely volatile, as stocks fall dramatically after incidents like mass shootings. But the 2017 name change failed, as their stock value has dropped 50% since then.

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Bausch Health -

Valeant Pharmaceuticals became notorious for massively increasing the price of life-saving drugs they offered through one of their subsidiaries. This led to multiple high-profile lawsuits and a plummet in their stock value in 2015. They changed their name to Bausch Health in 2018.

Sources: (Mental Floss) (USA Today)

See also: The strangest celebrity brand deals in history

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