The secret meaning of Google's name leaves netizens shocked

Did they Google it?

Google may be one of the most popular search engines in the world, but many people are only just discovering how it got its unusual name.

The etymology of the title was revealed via a resurfaced post on the forum platform Quora, in which a user asked: “Is Google an acronym?”

This gave rise to a series of theories regarding the origins of the name of the company, founded by computer scientists Sergey Brin and Larry Page in 1998 while they were doctoral students at Stanford University.

Some have mistakenly speculated that Google stands for “World Organization of Earth Oriented Groups Language.”

Google co-founders Larry Page (left) and Sergey Brin (right) at a press event where Google and T-Mobile announced the first Android-powered cell phone, the T-Mobile G1. Corbis via Getty Images — Google co-founders Larry Page (left) and Sergey Brin (right) at a press conference where Google and T-Mobile announced the first Android-powered cell phone, the T-Mobile G1. Corbis via Getty Images

Google co-founders Larry Page (left) and Sergey Brin (right) at a press conference where Google and T-Mobile announced the first Android-powered cell phone, the T-Mobile G1. Corbis via Getty Images

However, as many savvy users have pointed out, the iconic blue, red, yellow and green letters are not an abbreviation but rather a play on the word “Googol”. For the uninitiated, this is an arithmetic lexicon for 10 raised to the power of 100 or 1 with 100 zeros behind it – an almost inconceivable number.

Interestingly, the term was coined in 1920 by Milton Sirotta, the 9-year-old nephew of American mathematician Edward Kasner, who frequently referred to the number in his 1940 book “Mathematics and the Imagination.”

The boy’s reasoning was that such a stupid quantity deserved an equally stupid name.

When Larry Page and his colleagues were thinking about a name for the company, someone suggested calling it Googol, after which the tech honcho asked his friend if the domain was available.

Some have incorrectly assumed that Google stands for “World Organization of Earth Language Oriented Groups.” Christopher Sadowski

Some have mistakenly speculated that Google stands for — Some have incorrectly assumed that Google stands for “World Organization of Earth Language Oriented Groups.” Christopher Sadowski

However, the friend apparently misspelled the word “Google”, which Page decided he preferred and Google Inc. was born.

In other words, one of the world’s most powerful search engines was named – appropriately – after a typo in a search bar.

Despite the silliness, Google may be immediately better off labeling what Page and Brin almost chose.

The duo had originally planned to dub the ubiquitous search engine “Backrub” because the program used backlinks to perform searches.

As All That’s Interesting so succinctly puts it, “If you’re happy to be able to ‘Google’ something instead of ‘BackRubbing’ it, you can thank a typo, an incredibly large number, and a nine-year-old boy.”