MORE BRAND NAME ORIGINS

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A&M Records:

A&M Records was an American record label founded as an independent company by Herb Alpert and Jerry Moss in 1962. Due to the success of the discography A&M released, the label garnered interest and was acquired by PolyGram in 1989 and began distributing releases from Polydor Ltd. from the UK.

Herb Alpert (left) and Jerry Moss, the owners and founders of A&M Records, at the gate of their new establishment.

PolyGram was acquired by Seagram and dissolved into Universal Music Group in 1998, and A&M's operations were ceased in January 1999 when it was merged with Geffen Records and Interscope Records to form the record company Interscope Geffen A&M Records. In 2007, Interscope Geffen A&M announced that A&M was revived as trademark and brand and was to be merged with Octone Records to form A&M Octone Records, which operated until 2014, when A&M Octone was folded into Interscope. Today, A&M's catalogue releases are managed by Verve Records, Universal Music Enterprises and Interscope.

Despite the shutdown in 1999 and the name being phased out during the 2000s, present-day Sting releases continue to bear the A&M name & logo.

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Acer:

Acer Inc is a Taiwanese multinational hardware and electronics corporation specialising in advanced electronics technology, headquartered in Xizhi, New Taipei City. Its products include desktop PCs, laptop PCs (clamshells, 2-in-1s, convertibles and Chromebooks), tablets, servers, storage devices, virtual reality devices, displays, smartphones and peripherals, as well as gaming PCs and accessories under its Predator brand. Acer is the world's 5th-largest PC vendor by unit sales as of September 2022.

In the early 2000s, Acer implemented a new business model, shifting from a manufacturer to a designer, marketer, and distributor of products, while performing production processes via contract manufacturers.

Acer was founded in 1976 by Stan Shih, his wife Carolyn Yeh, and five others as Multitech in Hsinchu City, Taiwan. The company began with eleven employees and US$25,000 in capital.

The company changed its name to Acer in 1987; the Latin word for "sharp, acute, able and facile".

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Adidas:

Adidas AG is a German athletic apparel and footwear corporation headquartered in Herzogenaurach, Bavaria, Germany. It is the largest sportswear manufacturer in Europe, and the second largest in the world, after Nike. It is the holding company for the Adidas Group, which consists 8.33% stake of the football club Bayern München, and Runtastic, an Austrian fitness technology company. Adidas's revenue for 2018 was listed at €21.915 billion.

The company was started by Adolf Dassler in his mother's house; he was joined by his elder brother Rudolf in 1924 under the name Gebrüder Dassler Schuhfabrik ("Dassler Brothers Shoe Factory").

Adolf Dassler, founder of Adidas, c. 1915

The 'Dassler Brothers Shoe Factory' near Herzogenaurach train station in 1928.

Dassler assisted in the development of spiked running shoes for multiple athletic events. To enhance the quality of spiked athletic footwear, he transitioned from a previous model of heavy metal spikes to utilising canvas and rubber. Dassler persuaded U.S. sprinter Jesse Owens to use his handmade spikes at the 1936 Summer Olympics.

In 1949, following a breakdown in the relationship between the brothers, Adolf created Adidas (from Adi Dassler) and Rudolf established Puma, which became Adidas's business rival.

The three stripes are Adidas's identity mark, having been used on the company's clothing and shoe designs as a marketing aid. The branding, which Adidas bought in 1952 from Finnish sports company Karhu Sports for the equivalent of €1,600 and two bottles of whiskey, became so successful that Dassler described Adidas as "The three stripes company".

By the way:

Adidas and Puma SE entered into a fierce and bitter business rivalry after the split. The town of Herzogenaurach, the site of the shoe factories, was divided on the issue, leading to the nickname "the town of bent necks"—people looked down to see which shoes strangers wore. Even the town's two football clubs were divided: ASV Herzogenaurach club was supported by Adidas, while 1 FC Herzogenaurach endorsed Rudolf's footwear. When handymen were called to Rudolf's home, they would deliberately wear Adidas shoes. Rudolf would tell them to go to the basement and pick out a pair of free Pumas. The two brothers never reconciled and although they are now buried in the same cemetery, they are spaced as far apart as possible.

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Adobe Inc

Adobe Inc, originally called Adobe Systems Incorporated, is an American multinational computer software company. It has historically specialized in software for the creation and publication of a wide range of content, including graphics, photography, illustration, animation, multimedia/video, motion pictures, and print. Its flagship products include Adobe Photoshop image editing software; Adobe Illustrator vector-based illustration software; Adobe Acrobat Reader and the Portable Document Format (PDF); and a host of tools primarily for audio-visual content creation, editing and publishing.

Adobe was founded in December 1982 by John Warnock and Charles Geschke, who established the company after leaving Xerox PARC to develop and sell the PostScript page description language.

The company was started in John Warnock's garage. The name of the company, Adobe, comes from Adobe Creek in Los Altos, California, a stream which ran behind Warnock's house. That creek is so named because of the type of clay found there (Adobe being a Spanish word for Mudbrick), which alludes to the creative nature of the company's software.

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Akai

Akai is a Hong Kong manufacturer of consumer electronics. It was founded as Akai Electric Company Ltd in Tokyo, Japan, in 1946.

Following the controversial collapse of the original business in 2000, the Akai brand is now owned by Grande Holdings in Hong Kong which distributes various electronic products such as LED TV, washing machines, clothes dryers, air conditioners and smart phones, through collaborations with other electronics companies bearing relevant expertise.

Akai was founded by Masukichi Akai and his son, Saburo Akai (who died in 1973) as Akai Electric Company Ltd, the company being named after them.

Akai means red, hence the logo color.

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Aldi

Aldi is the company brand name of two German multinational family-owned discount supermarket chains operating over 10,000 stores in 20 countries. The chain was founded by brothers Karl and Theo Albrecht in 1946, when they took over their mother's store in Essen. The business was split into two separate groups in 1960, that later became Aldi Nord, headquartered in Essen, and Aldi Süd, headquartered in Mülheim.

In 1962, they introduced the name Aldi, an abbreviation for Albrecht Diskont), which is a portmanteau of Albrecht (name of the founders) and discount.

The brothers split the company in 1960, over a dispute about whether they should sell cigarettes. Karl believed they would attract shoplifters while his brother did not. At the time, they jointly owned 300 shops with a cash flow of DM90 million yearly.

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