Original photo by Jida Li/ Unsplash
From soup to nuts, there’s a brand out there trying to sell something to us. Some of those brand names are initialisms, like AT&T (American Telephone & Telegraph), CNN (Cable News Network), or the recently initialized KFC (which we once knew as Kentucky Fried Chicken). But many other brand names are acronyms, in which the name is formed from the initial letters (or parts) of a series of words, and pronounced as a word itself. Here are six brand names that you may not have realized are acronyms.
GEICO
The name of this insurance company kind of sounds like the anthropomorphic green gecko that serves as the brand’s mascot and spokescreature. But GEICO is absolutely an acronym: Leo Goodwin (a former employee of USAA Insurance) and his wife Lillian founded the company in 1936 as Government Employees Insurance Co. The billionaire investment guru Warren Buffett was an early investor, and now the company is owned by Berkshire Hathaway, Buffett’s multinational conglomerate.
IKEA
A lot of items sold at IKEA need to be assembled — just like the name of the brand. In 1943, enterprising Swedish teenager Ingvar Kamprad took his initials and added them to the first letter of the name of his farm (Elmtaryd) and village (Agunnaryd) to create the name of his new little company, which sold household goods like pens and picture frames. Today, IKEA has more than 400 blue-and-yellow big box stores selling Scandinavian home furnishings in almost 60 countries around the world.
M·A·C
In 1985, two Canadians named Frank (Toskan and Angelo) went into the kitchen, crafted a lipstick inspired by a pink Crayola crayon, and came out with a cosmetics empire. M·A·C was originally known as Make-up Art Cosmetics, and was founded when Toskan (a makeup artist and photographer) and Angelo (who owned a hair salon) began creating cosmetics that photographed well, and included the LGBTQ+ community and people of color in their marketing and outreach. M·A·C’s motto is “All Races, All Sexes, All Ages,” and the Franks’ inclusivity has been rewarded. Now part of the Estée Lauder Companies, M·A·C is a top brand sold in 120 countries around the world.
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FIAT
The iconic Italian brand Fiat is one of the largest automobile manufacturers in the world, and Italy’s bestselling line of cars. Launched in 1899, FIAT is an acronym for Fabbrica Italiana Automobili Torino, which tells what the company did (fabricate automobiles) and where they did it (the town of Turin, Italy). Today, FIAT is beloved for its beautifully engineered and timelessly classic convertibles and coupes, as well as for its many racing victories.
LEGO
Scientists estimate that at some point, every person on Earth will step barefoot on a piece of Lego. OK, not really, but these plastic interlocking bricks, first introduced in 1949, are one of the world’s most popular toys, with more than 400 billion pieces on the planet and 60 billion bricks now being produced each year. (They’ve even made it to space!) The Danish phrase “Leg Godt,” which translates to “play well,” is the origin of this brand’s acronym.
PEZ
In 1927, Austrian Eduard Haas III invented a peppermint candy as an alternative to smoking. The brand name Pez comes from three letters in “PfeffErminZ,” the German word for peppermint. The candy was originally packaged in small metal tins, and the first iteration of the mechanical dispenser came out in 1949. PEZ was introduced in the U.S. in 1952, and the popular toy head dispensers appeared in 1957, starting with a Halloween-themed witch. The candy is now sold in 90 countries, and there have been more than 1,400 different characters created for the dispensers.
Cynthia Barnes has written for the Boston Globe, National Geographic, the Toronto Star and the Discoverer. After loving life in Bangkok, she happily calls Colorado home.
