What’s in a name?

A list of companies and places with interesting name origins.

Companies

Adidas is a portmanteau of its founder’s name, Adi Dassler.
Akamai is a Hawaiian word meaning “intelligent” or “clever.”
Coca Cola’s name refers to it’s original ingredients, kola nuts (a source of caffeine) and coca leaves.
LEGO’s name is derived from the Danish phrase, “leg godt,” which means “play well.”
Mozilla is a portmanteau of “Mosaic” and “killer” (Mosaic referring to the Mosaic web browser).
Mt. Gox the now-defunct BitCoin exchange, was named as such because its founder had reused the domain name mtgox.com. He’d originally purchased this domain to build a website for Magic: The Gathering cards. This name is an abbreviation for “Magic: The Gathering Online eXchange.”
Pepsi was originally introduced in 1893 as “Brad’s Drink.” It was later renamed Pepsi Cola in 1898 after the Greek root word, “pepsin,” which refers to digestion.
Venmo is a portmanteau of “vendor” and “mobile.”
Vevo is a portmanteau of “video” and “evolution.”
Verizon is a portmanteau of “veritas” (Latin for “truth”) and “horizon.”
Volkswagen is German for, “people’s car.”

Armageddon is an actual place, about an hour’s drive from Tel Aviv, Israel. The word comes from the Hebrew “Har Megiddo,” meaning “Mount of Megiddo”.
Las Vegas means “the meadows” in Spanish.
Los Angeles means “the angels” in Spanish.

Nagios is a recursive acronym for “Nagios Ain’t Gonna Insist On Sainthood.”
Hamcrest is a Java testing library the name of which is an anagram of “matchers.”