Facebook / Häagen-Dazs
You're wearing your favorite Nike sneakers and Lululemon pants when you head to the mall to do some shopping at the Gap. On your way there you grab a latte at Starbucks.
After a few good hours of shopping, you head to Panera to meet a friend for lunch. You Venmo her for the meal and then you both decide dessert is in the cards: Next stop, Häagen-Dazs.
All these brands are staples in our lives. But do you have any idea what their names actually mean? We're here to help.
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According to Panera's Facebook page, the sandwich chain's name "has Latin and Spanish roots."
In Spanish, "pan" means bread and "era" means age or time. So put together, Panera means "age of bread."
Ron Shaich, the founder of Panera, also told Fortune the name comes from the Latin word for breadbasket.
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If you, like me, thought Adidas stood for "All Day I Dream About Soccer," you're wrong. It turns out the athletics-apparel brand is named after its founder, Adolf Dassler, who started making sport shoes when he came back from serving in World War I, according to the LA Times. The name combines his nickname, Adi, and the first three letters of his last name.
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Lululemon founder Chip Wilson came up with the yoga-wear brand's name because he thought Japanese people wouldn't be able to pronounce it.
"It was thought that a Japanese marketing firm would not try to create a North American sounding brand with the letter 'L' because the sound does not exist in Japanese phonetics. By including an 'L' in the name it was thought the Japanese consumer would find the name innately North American and authentic."
"In essence, the name 'lululemon' has no roots and means nothing other than it has 3 'L's' in it. Nothing more and nothing less."
A representative for Lululemon told Business Insider that the brand's name was chosen from a list of 20 brand names and 20 logos by a group of 100 people.
