In the year 1994, Jeff Bezos left his cushy investment banking job, to work on his startup. Internet was blowing up at the time. So he got the idea of doing something internet-related. Of creating an online store, to sell books! What should he call this online store? He thinks of the name Cadabra. From Abra-Cadabra. This name was so weird that when he started using this name, his lawyers questioned the name.
When they called up customers, the customers often didn’t recognise or understand the name of the company. They tell him that the name has to be changed. So Jeff Bezos started thinking about other names. He registered several domain names. Because it was supposed to be an online bookstore, he thought of BookMall.
In fact, this is a domain name that still redirects to amazon.com when you type in this website on your browser. He finally settled on the name Amazon, because Amazon is the largest rainforest in the world. And the Amazon River is the largest river in the world. He wanted the Amazon company he built, to be the largest bookstore in the world. Interestingly, if we fast forward to 25 years into the future, today, Amazon is not only the largest bookstore in the world, but also is the largest online store for buying just about anything.
