Why Is It Called "Google"?

[Surreal]

Is the name “Google” some sort of bastardization of Googol- which is 10 x 10 x 10… one hundred times?

[beagledave]

Yes.

[Surreal]

Thanks.

Why do you suppose they changed the spelling?

[Beastal]

Coz it’s “cool”.

Like how I wrote “Coz” instead of “because”, also, makes me look cool.

[Urban_Ranger]

It’s easy to trademark the name “Google,” while real words are hard. Now that MS is finding out the hard way when they sued Lindows for trademark infringement.

[Terminus_Est]

If ever there was a question that begged for the answer “Look it up on Google,” this is it.

http://www.google.com/corporate/history.html

Google is a play on the word “googol”, which was coined by Milton Sirotta, nephew of American mathematician Edward Kasner, to refer to the number represented by 1 followed by 100 zeros. A googol is a very large number. There isn’t a googol of anything in the universe. Not stars, not dust particles, not atoms. Google’s use of the term reflects the company’s mission to organize the immense, seemingly infinite, amount of information available on the web.

[CzechHistory411]

The word “Google” also brings to mind words like “ogle” and “goggles” that have to do with looking and eyes. That may be another–perhaps unintentional–reason why it works so nicely as a search engine name.

– CH

[23skidoo]

*Originally posted by Surreal *
**Thanks.

Why do you suppose they changed the spelling? **

My guesses:

1. There already was a googol.com

2. The average person who heard the word googol would probably spell it “g-o-o-g-l-e” anyway.

[dwc1970]

*Originally posted by 23skidoo *
**

My guesses:

1. There already was a googol.com
   **

Yep, there is (it’s not a porn portal or anything like that, go ahead and check it out if you wish).