# Origin of Name 'Google'. **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [January 12, 2006, 12:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-name-google/339588 "2006-01-12T00:18:39Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Jim\_B](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jim_b/32/4338_2.png) [@Jim\_B](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jim_B)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2006, 12:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-name-google/339588/1 "2006-01-12T00:18:39Z")
For a long time I just assumed [Google](http://www.google.com/)’s name derived from the number one followed by 100 zeros, because it handles so many web pages, get it? But now I am not sure. I recently was looking at the name of that number and apparently it is spelled “googol”, **not** “google”. So where exactly does the website Google get its name? I’m looking for a story here. And please feel free to provide links too. Thank you very much in advance to all who reply 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Q.E.D](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/51bf81/32.png) [@Q.E.D](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.E.D)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2006, 12:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-name-google/339588/2 "2006-01-12T00:24:39Z")
From Google’s [corporate overview page](http://www.google.com/corporate/index.html): > [@](#): > > **What’s a Google?** > > “Googol” is the mathematical term for a 1 followed by 100 zeros. The term was coined by Milton Sirotta, nephew of American mathematician Edward Kasner, and was popularized in the book, “Mathematics and the Imagination” by Kasner and James Newman. Google’s play on the term reflects the company’s mission to organize the immense amount of information available on the web. ---
**Author:** ![Patty\_O\_Furniture](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/96bed5/32.png) [@Patty\_O\_Furniture](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Patty_O_Furniture)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2006, 12:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-name-google/339588/3 "2006-01-12T00:29:46Z")
Didn’t you Google this? 🙂 > **[Google](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google#Etymology)** > > Google LLC is an American multinational technology company that specializes in Internet-related services and products, which include online advertising technologies, a search engine, cloud computing, software, and hardware. It is considered one of the Big Five companies in the American information technology industry, along with Amazon, Facebook, Apple, and Microsoft. > Google was founded on September 4, 1998, by Larry Page and Sergey Brin while they were Ph.D. students at Stanford University ... > [@](#): > > The name “Google” is a reference to the word “Googol”, which was coined by Milton Sirotta, nine-year-old nephew of U.S. mathematician Edward Kasner in 1938, to refer to the number represented by 1 followed by one hundred zeros. Google’s use of the term reflects the company’s mission to organize the immense amount of information available on the Web. As a further play on this, Google’s headquarters are referred to as “the Googleplex” — a googolplex being 1 followed by a googol of zeros, and the HQ being a complex of buildings (cf. multiplex, cineplex, etc). > > The name has also been interpreted as a merging of the words “Go ogle”, though this is widely accepted to be coincidental. The term appears in James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake: “who thought him a Fonar all, feastking of shellies by googling Lovvey” [231.12]. > > The phrase “to google” has come to be synonymous with “to search for on the Internet”. ---
**Author:** ![Beware\_of\_Doug](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/278dde/32.png) [@Beware\_of\_Doug](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beware_of_Doug)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2006, 1:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-name-google/339588/4 "2006-01-12T01:34:07Z")
No chance it came from _Barney Google_, with the goo goo goo-gly eyes? ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2006, 3:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-name-google/339588/5 "2006-01-12T03:37:34Z")
> [@Beware of Doug](#): > > No chance it came from _Barney Google_, with the goo goo goo-gly eyes? Nobody seems to ever mention that in connection with the search engine or the company, and given the age of both the reference (quite old) and the founders (quite young) it sounds like a coincidence. ---
**Author:** ![alterego](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/6bbea6/32.png) [@alterego](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alterego)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2006, 6:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-name-google/339588/6 "2006-01-12T06:37:38Z")
There’s history, and then [there’s history](http://pro.corbis.com/popup/Enlargement.aspx?mediauids=%7B0433b3c6-25fd-4100-92e3-28654d6a6cb7%7D%7C%7Bffffffff-ffff-ffff-ffff-ffffffffffff%7D&qsPageNo=1&fdid=&Area=Search&TotalCount=1&CurrentPos=1&WinID=%7B0433b3c6-25fd-4100-92e3-28654d6a6cb7%7D): > [@Corbis](#): > > Original caption: 10/23/1975-San Diego, CA- It’s been another long, hard day for “Google,” a 7-year-old performing elephant seal at SeaWorld. His cavernous yawn shows just how exhausting his job has been. What’s that? Google lumbers out on stage and plays the ukulele in the finale of the “seal and penguin show.” If the link doesn’t work for you, search [pro.corbis.com](http://pro.corbis.com) for `google seal’. ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2006, 7:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-name-google/339588/7 "2006-01-12T07:09:23Z")
> [@Derleth](#): > > Nobody seems to ever mention that in connection with the search engine or the company, and given the age of both the reference (quite old) and the founders (quite young) it sounds like a coincidence. Well, there may be a connection, albeit indirect. It’s been suggested that Milton Sirotta was influenced by the comic strip character when he coined \googol\. I doubt if there’s any documentation to support this conjecture – it’s probably just that etymologists seem to dislike ex nihilo coinages and are always looking for where the word “really” came from. ---
**Author:** ![Pjen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Pjen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pjen)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2006, 8:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-name-google/339588/8 "2006-01-12T08:06:41Z")
I thought immediately of Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. This blog also thinks so: [http://blog.outer-court.com/forum/10023.html](http://blog.outer-court.com/forum/10023.html) “This word was coined in 1938 by Milton Sirotta, the 9-year-old nephew of American mathematician, Edward Kasner, when Ed asked him for a name for a very large number. The “Google” spelling was taken by the web search engine from “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” (1979) by Douglas Adams, in which one of Deep Thought’s designers asks, “And are you not . . . a greater analyst than the Googleplex Star Thinker in the Seventh Galaxy of Light and Ingenuity which can calculate the trajectory of every single dust particle throughout a five-week Dangrabad Beta sand blizzard?””