Have you tried Googleing how Google comes up with its name? Well, as a wild guess, you wouldn’t be here if you didn’t. So, just continue to read on for more insights on how Google got their catchy yet one-of-a-kind name.
Just A Brief Introduction
Google LLC is a multinational technology company with its main headquarters in Mountain View, California. It was founded by Larry Page and Sergey Brin back on September 4, 1998, and put their first office in Menlo Park, California.
Popularly coined by many business analysts as the Google juggernaut for its enormous worldwide coverage of service and amassed wealth. The company giant features different product services, including the most widely used search engine, the advertising where they generate most of their revenue, and several consumer-based services, such as Gmail for free email accounts, Google Maps for mapping and navigation, Google Drive for cloud storage, and many more.
Google stands as one of the Big Five companies in the United States, with Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft, and Apple.
The First Name of Google
Google was initially intended to be a research project by Page and Brin in January 1996 while still taking doctorate degrees at Stanford University. At first, there was a third unofficial founder of Google that was the lead programmer of their team; his name is Scott Hassan.
Hassan is the one who wrote most of the original Google search engine codes using a system that analyzes the relationships of websites. That is why Google search uses different algorithms to display search results, which they later called PageRank. However, by the time Google was officially founded as a company, Hassan left the team to pursue a career in robotics.
Before the name Google, Page and Brin used the name BackRub for their search engine. This is because the primary function of their program is to check backlinks of the website’s importance and relevance with other sites.
Coining The Name Google
After introducing BackRub as a search engine, the two computer scientists came up with an idea to change its name to a more appealing and memorable character. They wanted the public to easily remember the name, not because of its primary function, but what the system could provide to them.
After several ideas, Page and Brin eventually changed the name to Google. The reason behind the name is, Google actually came from the word “googol,” which means the number one is followed by one hundred zeros. This shows the public or users that Google can produce a hundred or large quantity of results or information upon searching.
On September 15, 1997, the domain name “www.google.com” was born, and their company was made official by incorporation after a year. During this time, they first utilize the garage of Susan Wojcicki, located in Menlo Park, California, as their main office. They also hired their first employee Craig Silverstein, their classmate in Ph.D. classes at Stanford University.
Gaining Popularity of Google
Page and Brin are correct in changing the search engine’s name from BackRub to Google back in 1997. Through the years, it has gained popularity in the public users, literature, and even the entertainment sector.
The word Google in the year 2006 made its way to be listed as a verb in Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary, as well as in Oxford English Dictionary. The meaning of the word Google in those dictionaries is denoted as “to use the Google search engine in obtaining information on the internet.”
Surprisingly, the word Google was also used in entertainment sectors, particularly in the October episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer in 2002. This idea started to show the public and many commercial industries the popularity of Google in the mainstream media.
Final Thoughts
The name Google came up to denote that their search engine can provide a large number of results and information for the benefit of the user. This is based on the word googol that means the number one is followed by one hundred zeros. The founders of Google decided to focus on what they can provide for the consumer or user instead of focusing on how their system functions.