No, no -- of course we didn't name our product after that famous thing!

Cafe Society
1

Associating your product with something famous, trendy, and attractive (no matter how absurd the association) has always been a good advertising move. It makes people think positively of your brand, and it comes to mind when they see that famous or trendy thing in its own context. Donald Duck orange juice has been around since the 1940s. Kids’ lunch boxes, shoes, backpacks, and other items are plastered with cartoon characters and TV show images. Back in the 1960s and 1970s whiskeys, colognes, and other items sought to be associated with James Bond.

This might get you brand recognition and higher sales, but it also costs you in royalties. To avoid royalties, or for other reasons, some products that seem all to clearly to be named after something have denied any association at all.
Skippy Peanut Butter – arguably the poster child for this concept. Virtually nobody remembers it today, but Skippy was originally an immenselt popular comic strip, back when successful comic strips were a Big Deal Running from 1923 to 1945, it concerned the adventures of fifth grader “Skippy” Skinner, and was a big influence on Charles Schultz’ Peanuts, among others. It spawned a novel, movies, and a radio show. The 1931 movie starred Jackie Cooper, who won an Oscar for Best Actor in a Leading Role as a result. The strip was the creation of Percy Crosby.

Skippy Peanut butter first came out in 1932, almost a decade after the strip started, and at the peak of its popularity, after that Oscar-winning film. The advertising for the peanut butter looked suspiciously like the artwork of the strip (although it didn’t include any human characters, so there was no one that was arguably “Skippy”). The manufacturer, Joseph J. Rosefield, didn’t even try to get permission. Crosby, who had trademarked the name “Skippy” in 1925, promptly sued. He won. But Rosefield continued to use the name. After Crosby’s strip fell in popularity and fell on hard times, drifting into alcoholism and then to an asylum, Rosefield eventually got the rights to the name and used it ever after. The brand passed hands several times, and is still being made. Skippy’s website, not surprisingly, doesn’t even hint at any of this. The company still denies any connection.
Baby Ruth – The candy bar, manufactured by Curtiss Candy, was renamed from Kandy Kake to Baby Ruth in 1921, when baseball player Babe Ruth, who had been sold to the New York Yankees by Boston two years previously, was becoming a household name. He was already known for his prodigious hitting record, both in frequency and distance.

The Curtiss people, however, insisted that the candy bar had been renamed after Ruth Cleveland, President Grover Cleveland’s daughter. This would’ve been more believable if a.) Cleveland hadn’t been out of office for almost a quarter of a century, and b.) Ruth Cleveland hadn’t been dead for 17 years. This is about as reasonable as someone in 2019 saying that they named a candy bar “Billy” after Billy Carter.
Luna Park – One of the original Coney Island amusement parks, it was the work of ride developers Frederick Thompson and Elmer Scipio “Skip” Dundee. They came up with what was essentially a “virtual reality” ride called “A Trip to the Moon” that was first exhibited at the 1901 Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, NY. as often happened with spectacle rides in those days, after the fair was over they wanted to give it a more permanent home at one of the new amusement parks. At first they leased space at George Tilyou’s Steeplechase Park at Coney Island (the second such amusement park), but they soon bought Paul Boyton’s Sea Lion Park (the first Coney Island Amusement Park, and arguably the first modern amusement park), tore down most of the other attractions, and installed their Trip to the Moon as one of the centerpieces (the Shoot the Chutes ride remained from Sea Lion Park as the main attraction). So naturally, when they named their new amusement park Luna Park, it was named after the ride, right? Thomson and Dundee always said that it was REALLY named after Dundee’s sister, Luna.

If you wanted to argue that they named the park after his sister because “Luna” sounded classier than “Moon”, I might allow it, but to say that the name had nothing to do with the centerpiece ride that the park was largely built on seems absurd. And there was no question of royalties here. Maybe it was all an elaborate game to pleas Luna Dundee, with everyone for years afterwards swearing that “Oh, no – the park was named after YOU!” Or maybe they did it so that people would continue to talk about it, keeping the park’s name alive.

Those early Coney Island park were a big influence on the amusement park industry, and all over the country when new parks were started up after 1904, they generally used the name of one of the existing parks, or called their park “Coney Island” in an attempt at stolen glory. Wikipedia lists close to a hundred amusement parks named “Luna Park” or some close variation around the world, some of them founded since 2000. “lunapark” even is synonymous with “amusement park” in some languages. and none of them paid royalties to the original park. Or to Luna Dundee, for that matter.

2

The Hooters restraurant chain is, of course, named after owls… :rolleyes:

3

And Twin Peaks after the majestic Rocky Mountains

4

In the ultimate bad-taste naming, there is a (pretty good) bar in Dallas named Lee Harvey’s. They claim no connection to the assassin of the same name.

5

That’s my brand!

Back in the dark ages of the 1980s, OJ didn’t come in fancy jugs separated neatly by nutritional enhancement (With Calcium!) or by pulp content, it was just orange juice. Not liking pulp in my juice, my mother bought the cheapest stuff because the cheap stuff tended not to have pulp (and it was cheap), and the cheap stuff was Donald Duck OJ.

I still buy it to this day.

6

I believe the Grand Tetons specifically.

7

All respect, but I would eat the hell out of that candy bar. Billy knew how to bring the party.

8

This, I confess, has annoyed me. If you look up the etymology of the name for the mountains you find something like “playfully named by French explorers” after women’s breasts. When I finally visited Grand Tetons National Park, I found sights like this:

Those French explorers must have gone a long time without proper relief.

Gimme the Breasts of Aphrodite in Mykonos Greece:

Or the paops of Anu in Ireland

or the Paps of Jura in Scotland

Those are breast-shaped mountains. The Grand Tetons are too angular and craggy.

9

Yeah, but how many people would pick up on it, this long after Billy Beer has gone? My point is that you’d likely name it after some contemporary partier, then lie about it.

10

Club 69 insists that was the street number of the first one.

Yeah, right.

11

I have to admit that I’m often suspicious of bands disclaiming reasons for their names. r.e.M. claimed that their name didn’t come from the abbreviation for “Rapid Eye Movement”, although they never did say what it meant. From the writeup in Wikipedia it appears they got it from a random stab in a dictionary, which would, indeed, have been the acronym for “Rapid Eye Movement”.

The BeeGees seem so clearly to come from Brothers Gibb that it’s hard to believe any other origin. But Wikipedia claims it’s ftom Barry’s first initial and racecar driver Bill Goode’s last initial. Really? You got half the name from the initial of a guy who isn’t even in the band? And “Brother’s Gibb” didn’t influence your decision to keep that name long after any association with Goode was over?

12

That’s not really what the Wikipedia entry says:

So, the official story appears to be that “BG” was Barry Gibb’s initials, as well as being the initials of their promoter, DJ Bill Gates, and the driver, Bill Goode.

I don’t disagree with you that “Brothers Gibb” still feels like a more sensible explanation, but the official story isn’t quite as far-fetched as you portrayed it.

13

Ah, thought of another one.

I can’t come up with any plausible reason for Hannah Barbera to name its cartoon bear Yogi Bear besides imitating the name of the famous Yankee catcher Yogi Berra. Is there anything else that seems even remotely similar in sound or derivation? But HB denied any association:

Yeah, right.

I have much more respect for Jay Ward productions. When they had a Rocky and Bullwinkle episode featuring the “Kirwood Derby”, which is clearly inspired by the name of performer “Durward Kirby” (who was co-hosting Candid Camera at the time), they didn’t weasel out of it:

14

Not exactly what the OP is asking for, but has there been a definitive answer whether Pearl Jam is a euphemism for jizz? I seem to remember supposed quotes from band members both denying and confirming it.

15

This thread brings to mind that the billionaire Armand Hammer and Arm & Hammer baking soda have nothing to do with each other. The Arm & Hammer name was in use 31 years before Hammer was born.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arm_%26_Hammer

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armand_Hammer

P.S. Actor Armie Hammer is Armand Hammer’s great grandson.

16

Also if you take IBM and go one letter backwoods it spells HAL—which was the name of the computer in 2001: A Space Odyssey. The makers of the film claim this just a coincidence.

17

Not a brand but school officials claim the resemblance was unintentional.

18

Although the spinach-eater and his cohorts have appeared in advertisements, fried chicken chain Popeye’s was supposedly named after a Gene Hackman character.

19

The similarity of names ended up causing Armand to buy into the parent company and sit on its Board:

Since the brand name existed decades before Armand’s birth, it seems to me that the real question – which nobody seems to have addressed – was whether or not the brand name influenced Armand’s parents when they were naming him.

Armand himself gave other explanations for his name, but doesn’t even mention the baking soda connection:

20

Clarke wrote an article shortly after the film was released forcefully making this claim. There doesn’t seem to be any good reason to disbelieve him.

Julian Lennon drew the picture of Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds and both John and Paul maintained (as Paul continues to this day) that the initials forming LSD were pure coincidence. Coincidences do happen.