How did Google get its name?

Answer

From Portfolio.com: http://www.portfolio.com/culture-lifestyle/goods/gadgets/2007/08/13/How-Google-Works

Blame spell-check. Ten years ago this September, so the story goes, some Stanford grad students were helping Larry Page choose a name for his search engine. "Googolplex," said Sean ­Anderson. (They'd already sensed how big this could ­become.) "Googol," Page ­replied. ­Anderson, checking to see if the name was taken, typed ­g-o-o-g-l-e into his browser and made the most famous spelling mistake since p-o-t-a-t-o-e. Page registered the name within hours, and today, Google isn't a typo, it's a verb, one with a market cap of about $160 billion. Here, then, is a guide to what happens during a typical Google search-now, of course, with automatic spell-check.


According to www.google.com, "Google's use of the term [Google] reflects the company's mission to organize the immense, seemingly infinite amount of information available on the web."*

.........I don't believe the information above is accurate.

EDIT: A googol is the large number 10¹⁰⁰, that is, the digit 1 followed by one hundred zeros (in decimal representation). The term was coined in 1938^[1] by Milton Sirotta (1929-1980), nephew of American mathematician Edward Kasner. Milton was nine years old at the time. Kasner popularized the concept in his book Mathematics and the Imagination (1940). (Wikipedia)

Google wanted to use Googol, but was told that they could not use this name due to copyright issues, so they purposely decided to misspell it, resulting in google.

First answer by ID1177845356. Last edit by Brittanyr01. Contributor trust: 1 [recommend contributor]. Question popularity: 19 [recommend question]