Tech Products With the Strangest Original Names

Every billion-dollar tech brand started somewhere — but some of those “somewheres” came with names that would never survive today’s focus group.

Google was once Backrub — named after the algorithm’s “backlink analysis” function. It crawled the web’s link structure to determine authority… and yes, it was as awkward to explain in casual conversation as it sounds. “Hey, have you tried Backrub?” isn’t exactly mass-market friendly.

Nintendo Wii? Originally called Revolution — because Nintendo saw it as a radical shift in gaming, with motion controls changing how people played. The name was bold, but Nintendo wanted something friendlier and more universal, especially for non-gamers. Thus, the much-memed “Wii” was born.

Adobe Photoshop started as a project called Display, a simple image-viewing program created by Thomas Knoll. It wasn’t even intended to be a commercial product — until Knoll’s brother John saw its potential, added editing tools, and turned it into the powerhouse we know today.

Some rebrands were smart. Others were… necessary. (Imagine trying to tell someone you just bought a new Backrub phone.) But they’re all reminders that a name is rarely perfect at the start — it becomes perfect when the product earns it.