Most of us probably don’t put too much thought into our cars’ names. Sure, we’ll take the wheel of a Toyota or a Chevrolet, but how did those cars pick up their monikers? Let’s take a look at a few that aren’t quite as obvious as the Ford name.
1. Nissan
The company we now know as Nissan got its start in 1914 as DAT Motorcar. The “DAT” name came from the first initial of the three founders’ family names. In 1931, DAT introduced a new small car they called the Datson, which later morphed into “Datsun.”
Meanwhile, businessman Yoshisuke Aikawa founded an industrial holding company in 1928 and named his new venture Nippon Sangyo. (The name loosely translates into “Japan Industries.”) Aikawa’s company bought out DAT in 1931, and eventually the Nippon Sangyo name became abbreviated as Nissan.
Some drivers may remember cruising around in Datsuns before they ever got behind the wheel of a Nissan. What prompted the name change? Until the early 1980s, the Datsun badge appeared on the cars Nissan exported out of Japan. In 1981, though, Nissan execs announced that they were changing this practice in order to strengthen global awareness of the Nissan brand. Thus, you can’t buy a Datsun Z anymore, but you can get the keys to a Nissan one.
2. Toyota
Toyota didn’t start out as a car company. It wasn’t called Toyota, either. In 1926, Sakichi Toyoda founded the Toyoda Automatic Loom Works, a company that made looms, not cars. In 1933, Toyoda’s son Kiichiro started a separate motors division, and the company’s cars quickly took off.
How did the name get from “Toyoda” to “Toyota,” though? In 1936, the company held a competition to design a new logo, and the winner consisted of the three Japanese characters that made up the Toyoda name. However, after giving it some thought, the Toyoda family decided that the slightly tweaked “Toyota” was stronger. Writing out “Toyoda” required nine brush strokes, whereas “Toyota” only required eight, a lucky number in Japan. Plus, the name just sounded better, so Toyoda became Toyota.
3. Chrysler
Walter Chrysler probably wasn’t on anyone’s short list of potential moguls when he was a young man. He spent much of his youth kicking around Texas as a railroad mechanic, and although the work wasn’t glamorous, he developed quite a skill set as a machinist. In 1911, the gifted 36-year-old machinist became production chief for Buick, and by 1919 he was making millions of dollars a year as head of the company.
Chrysler eventually left Buick, and after a failed attempt to take over the Willys-Overland Motor Company, he uses some of his accumulated wealth to buy a controlling interest in the floundering Maxwell Motor Company. Chrysler’s new company introduced a popular car called the Chrysler in 1924, and by the next year the Maxwell name had disappeared in favor of Chrysler.
4. Honda
Honda bears the name of its founder, Soichiro Honda. Honda was a precocious mechanic who started the Honda Motor Co. Ltd. in 1946 to build small motorcycles. Although the motorcycle business got off to a slow start, by the 1960s the business had become one of the world’s largest manufacturers of bikes. In 1963, Honda introduced its first production automobile, the Honda T360 pickup truck.
5. Buick
Scottish immigrant David Dunbar Buick was an inventive fellow; before he ever got into the motors game, he created a more efficient way of manufacturing enameled cast-iron bathtubs. Buick began toying with engines during the 1890s, and after starting one failed engine company, he tried again with the Buick Manufacturing Company in 1902. Buick’s cars were terrific — his pioneering use of overhead valve technology made them tough to beat — but he had trouble actually producing and delivering them on time. As a result he always needed to find new investors to advance him cash, and eventually his company was sold out from under him to General Motors founder William C. Durant.
In 1908, Durant gave Buick the heave-ho and a $100,000 severance check. Buick tried to parlay this money into a great fortune by investing in oil fields, but he didn’t have any luck. When his attempts to get back into the car business in the 1920s floundered, he ended up working as an instructor at the Detroit School of Trades. That venture didn’t go so well, either; the school demoted him to receptionist. When Buick died in 1929, he was flat broke.
6. Chevrolet
Remember how William Durant forced David Buick out of Buick’s own company? Karma can be rough. In 1910, Durant’s own creditors forced him out of his management role at the company he started, General Motors. Durant didn’t stay down for long, though. He teamed with Swiss race car driver and mechanic Louis Chevrolet to start a new motor company in 1911. The pair named the company after Chevrolet, and legend has it that they developed a logo that resembled the Swiss cross of Chevrolet’s homeland. (Other stories indicate that Durant copied the bowtie logo from a French hotel’s wallpaper.)
The company quickly earned the pair quite a bit of loot. Durant suddenly had enough cash to regain control of General Motors, and in 1917 GM acquired Chevrolet. Louis Chevrolet didn’t do quite as well, though. He sold his share of the company to Durant in 1914, and although his career had other highlights, including a 7th-place finish at the 1919 Indianapolis 500, he never enjoyed much financial success and eventually had to return to Chevy as a consultant.
7. Dodge
Brothers John and Horace Dodge were gifted machinists who began a Michigan bicycle company in the 1890s. Eventually they sold this business and began creating transmissions for Olds in 1902 and then Ford in 1903. However, they longed to create cars of their own, so in 1913 they left their lucrative supplier positions at Ford and started working on their own car designs. The brothers’ cars were soon the second-hottest sellers in the country, and they were fabulously wealthy.
8. Mercedes
In 1897, Austrian entrepreneur Emil Jellinek began ordering Daimler cars that he could drive in some of Europe’s quickly growing auto races. It took a few years, but by the dawn of the 20th century, Jellinek had a number of Daimlers that he adored driving. He often raced under an assumed name when driving these cars; he took on the name of his 12-year-old daughter Mercedes. In 1900, Jellinek worked out a deal with Daimler to order 36 new cars on the condition that the cars be called Mercedes. Daimler agreed, and the famed luxury brand name was born.
9. Volvo
The Swedish automaker’s name is Latin for “I roll,” a conjugation of the word volvere. The company got its start as part of the Swedish ball bearing company SKF, and after SKF trademarked the Volvo name in 1915, the company planned to put the “Volvo” name on most anything that rolled, from bears to bicycles to automobiles. The plan wasn’t quick to get off the ground, though; thanks to World War I, Volvo didn’t actually start its car business until 1926.
And a few quick ones:
10. Cadillac: Named for Antoine Laumet de La Mothe, sieur de Cadillac, the French explorer who founded Detroit in the early 18th century.
11. Saab: Abbreviation of “Svenska Aeroplan Aktiebolag,” which is Swedish for “Swedish Airplane, Limited.”
12. Volkswagen: German for “people’s car.”
13. Lexus: Toyota went to its ad agency and an image-consulting firm when it needed a name for its luxury division. At first, they decided on “Alexis,” but it gradually evolved into Lexus.
14. Mazda: According to Mazda’s website, the brand’s name is borrowed from the Zoroastrian religion. Ahura Mazda is the Zoroastrian “God of reason who granted wisdom and united man, nature and the other gods.”
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Subaru is the infinitive form of the Japanese verb “to excel”
posted by PartiallyDeflected on 3-30-2010 at 1:16 pm
Interesting that there is a William Durant Chevrolet dealer around Dallas. I wonder if it’s owned by the original family? I’m curious now.
posted by tinkerschnitzel on 3-30-2010 at 1:35 pm
I thought Subaru was the Japanese name for the constellation Pleiades (The ‘Seven Sisters’ of Greek mythology), as represented by its seven-star logo.
posted by pannonica on 3-30-2010 at 1:48 pm
Really interesting. I’d known that those were names of people but didn’t know the history of those persons. I do seem to remember an earlier article that pointed out that the Cadillac brand was the renamed failure of Henry Ford’s first attempt at car making. How about a follow up story on the following names: Boeing, Northrup, Cessna, Piper, Lockheed, Martin, Lear, Douglas….you get the drift I’m sure, aircraft manufactors.
posted by Prism on 3-30-2010 at 2:16 pm
Further to the Lexus story, you forgot to mention that the way they decided on “Alexis” in the first place was because it was in the 80′s and that was a popular name. Then came Dynasty which tarnished the name and they modified it to “Lexus”. A friend who works at Toyota told me that and it made me laugh.
posted by fifty-percent on 3-30-2010 at 2:36 pm
I had heard Subaru was the name for the Pleiades as well – learned that one at the planetarium.
And my local trivia night claimed LEXUS stood for “Luxury Export U.S.” – anyone else heard that one?
posted by muffy on 3-30-2010 at 3:24 pm
a friend who is an employee at Toyota corporate indicated that “Lexus” is a hybrid of the words “luxury” and “success,” two qualities the company wanted people to think of when they went to purchase a Lexus.
posted by kcz on 3-30-2010 at 4:06 pm
I heard about Lexus being “luxury export US” too. heard it froma friend who sold them for years. WTF???
posted by Darren on 3-30-2010 at 4:47 pm
@muffy They sell Lexuses (Lexi?) all over the world, so that in itself would make zero sense. The US is the largest market, but only accounts for 50 percent of the sales.
posted by Patten on 3-30-2010 at 4:54 pm
I had always wondered about the Mazda name since taking a religion class and learning about Ahura Mazda. Finally I know! :)
posted by LO on 3-30-2010 at 5:20 pm
My dad loved his little blue Datsun wagon and would pretty much just buy the same (used) model every time he needed to get a new car until about the late 80s when he switched to Volvo wagons.
Great article!
posted by Sarah in CA on 3-30-2010 at 6:20 pm
Muffy is right. When the Lexus brand was originally developed it was only developed for the US market. The project was called–you guessed it–”The Luxury Export to U. S.” project. For years, Toyota had wanted to sell a high end version of their Toyota brand in the US, but Americans would not pay a premium price for what was perceived as a mid-market price point car–the Toyota. So, they took a page from other automakers (Ford / Lincoln for example) and looked into re-branding the upscale Toyota. They’d been calling it the word “Lexus” internally. (Interesting side note: Lexus engineers actually moved into the homes of different American families to see how they lived their lives in order to see what kind of car they would want to drive–this is the kind of attention to detail that allowed Lexus to climb to the top of the luxury market from seemingly out of nowhere.) The name “Lexus” tested well–as the feedback from the test groups was that the name Lexus made them think of the words “luxury” and “success” , so it was ultimately selected. (I can’t say Alexis was or was not in consideration, it may have just been one of the “options/derivatives” that didn’t test as well or an executive decision overrode the Alexis name suggestion.)
I’m not sure what year Lexus when “world-wide” but for years, if you wanted to buy a “Lexus ES” outside of the U.S. you’d ask for a Toyota ES. I learned all of this in my consumer marketing class in the 1990s. We had a huge case study on Lexus.
A few years after I graduated, my brother in law worked for Lexus and he confirmed that everything in the case study was true. He said Lexus/Toyota was able to make a KILLING on their profit lines for the Lexus badge because of a simple name change and a few upgrades. He told me buy a Toyota Camry instead of the Lexus ES–you’ll get the same basic car with the same quality, for thousands less. (Although I’m sure if I could have afforded a Lexus in 1995, he would have sold me one!)
posted by CB on 3-31-2010 at 1:30 am
According to Wikipedia and its sources (which includes an article in Forbes) nobody seems to know the exact origin of the name Lexus – Alexis, “luxury-elegance” and “luxury export US” are all cited.
posted by muffy on 3-31-2010 at 1:32 am
The name is Mercedes Benz, not Mercedes. There’s quite a bit more to the story…
Karl Benz built an automobile in 1886. He produced prototype vehicles for the next ten years, and by the mid 1890′s was producing cars on a commercial basis.
Gottlieb Daimler was a German engineer who also produced his first car in 1886. He and engineer Wilhelm Maybach formed a rival company to Benz, called DMG. One of the early distributors of DMG cars was Emil Jellinek.
By 1900, Jellinek was operating a successful dealership in Nice, and was in a position to demand something really special from Daimler. He requested a car with a long wheelbase, more horsepower, lower center of gravity, and electric ignition. He offered a large sum of money to Daimler not only to produce the car, but to give him an exclusive dealership covering most of western Europe and the US. He reserved the right to name the car, and called it Mercedes, after his daughter.
During the post-WWI depression, the Benz and DMG companies were forced to merge. This occured in 1926. The resulting company was called Daimler Benz. Their automobiles, capitalizing on the strength of both brands, became known as Mercedes Benz, which is how we know them today.
By the way, I love my E320 :)
posted by Lauren on 3-31-2010 at 2:15 am
And Pontiac was named after the Indian tribe that had settled on the land where Detroit now stands.
posted by Rizz Rustbolt on 3-31-2010 at 11:14 am
What about Mitsubishi?
posted by Nick on 3-31-2010 at 12:15 pm
i like my volvo even more now – cuz thats how i roll :)
posted by tiffany on 3-31-2010 at 2:47 pm
Mitsubisih is Japanese for “3 Diamonds”, I believe.
posted by Darry on 4-1-2010 at 1:29 pm
Mazda is not a god. He IS God – he same God that is known as Jehova and Allah. Zoroaster was a major Messenger of God in the same league as Moses. The three maji, or “wise men” in the Bible story, were Zoroastrians who traveled to Judea in search of the Promised One whose coming had been foretold by Zoroaster.
It takes either a certain amount of ignorance and a lot of chutzpa to name a car company “God.”
posted by TY on 4-5-2010 at 3:22 pm
yeah Subaru is from the constellation.
Not from “Subarashi” (that’s an adjective)
Mitsubishi means three stars (diamonds)… kind of fitting really…
Toyoda would require two extra strokes when written in Hiragana or Katakana, but no extra strokes when written in Kanji (Chinese characters). The “Da” kanji can be read as “ta” or “da”, but is usually “da” when it is placed at the end of a word.
Honda is an ancient family name in Japan, dating well back and associated with feudal lords, particularly in the Himeji region and west Japan.
If you take just the two Kanji for Nissan and directly translate them it means “product of the sun”
posted by Johnny on 4-15-2010 at 4:52 am
actually if you look at the Subaru logo there are only six stars because only six stars can be seen with the naked eye in the Pleiades star cluster. I’m not sure how it came to be called the seven sisters in Greece, but I’m sure Wikipedia could clear that up.
posted by Silve on 6-22-2010 at 3:30 pm