Cool Wikipedia page on company name etymologies.
eBay — Pierre Omidyar, who had created the Auction Web trading website, had formed a web consulting concern called Echo Bay Technology Group. “Echo Bay” didn’t refer to the town in Nevada, “It just sounded cool,” Omidyar reportedly said. Echo Bay Mines Limited, a gold mining company, had already taken EchoBay.com, so Omidyar registered what (at the time) he thought was the second best name: eBay.com.
ELF — French oil company, its name is an abbreviation of Essence et Lubrifiants de France (Oil and Lubricants from France).
ESPN — Entertainment and Sports Programmming Network
Epson — Epson Seiko Corporation, the Japanese printer and peripheral manufacturer, was named from “Son of Electronic Printer”
Esso — the enunciation of the initials S.O. in Standard Oil of New Jersey.
Exxon — a name contrived by Esso (Standard Oil of New Jersey) in the early 1970s to create a neutral but distinctive label for the company. Within days, Exxon was being called the “double cross company” but this eventually subsided. (Esso is a trademark of ExxonMobil.) Esso had to change its name in the USA because of restrictions dating to the 1911 Standard Oil antitrust decision.
I cannot fathom companies that do away with cool names that they already have. Like, “US Steel” became “USX” for a while. Currently “Illinois Power” is called “AmerenIP”.
True.
But, then, I was sad when “BankAmericard” became “Visa.”