Why is Amazon called Amazon?

Allow: Amazon. (Source: adobe.stock)

Hand on heart: If you Amazonas listen, then you might think of the river first, but immediately afterwards of the corporation. In English the body of water is called Amazonbecause you probably even associate the shipping giant first.

But why did Jeff Bezos call Amazon that at the time?

Amazon used to have a different name

It’s hard to imagine that Amazon wasn’t called Amazon, after all it’s such a distinctive name that you read and hear everywhere.

This was Amazon’s first name: When Bezos moved to Seattle in 1994 and founded the company, he named it Cadabra, Inc..

According to the book The everything seller about the history of Amazon, that was a reference to the saying Abracadabra. This should suggest that using the store worked like magic.

The name only stuck for a few months. A lawyer had misheard and thought that Cadabra Cadaver (Eng. carcass) would mean. This led Bezos and his then-wife to change the name.

But why the name now? Amazon?

Which is better known: the river or the shipping giant? (Source: adobe.stock)

First Bezos had relentless.com on the screen, but that sounded too unfriendly to him. awake.com and browse.com were also considered – and still link directly to Amazon today.

Here’s why Bezos finally chose Amazon: In the days before Google search engines, alphabetical lists were used to find websites. If you were at the top there, you would of course be found faster (hence the idea of ​​awake.com).

In the end, he chose Amazon because it’s not only the most extensive rainforest area on earth, but also the name of the longest river – and Bezos wanted to have the largest bookstore in the world.

Branding has always been fundamental to Bezos, and you can see where it’s going.

The geniuses of this world have always had different approaches. According to Tim Cook, Steve Jobs had three secrets to his success that we share with you:

Amazon has become an integral part of people’s minds, and Jeff Bezos once started small. Do you know where the name came from or the story behind it? Are you interested in background stories about well-known personalities in the tech industry? Feel free to write in the comments what you think about it.