Did they choose the name because it means something specific to the founder?
eBay started as regional service in the SF Bay area (actually out of San Jose) and then it grew and grew and grew and…
It stands for Electronic Bay.
I believe it is true that eBay stands for “Electronic Bay,” but I don’t believe it’s because they’re near the SF Bay. Rather, I imagine it’s because “bays” are where auctions often take place. Hence “eBay” (they were ahead of the curve, before everyone attached “e” to every word imaginable).
WAG
Different parts of the server?
a-bay
b-bay
The part that they (eBay) are on was called e-bay
Just a WAG
it’s “Be” in pig Latin. Maybe they use BeOS. 
Yes, but if it were electonic bay, it would be Ebay. However, check their site, its written as ‘ebay’, small ‘e’.
I think that it means East Bay, because its the east part of the bay, but hey, that’s just my creativity at work.
Lowercase “e” is very frequenty used to represent “electronic” as in “e-zine” and “e-commerce”. The “e” need not be capitalized.
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Then how did eToys get its name? From eastern toys?