5 Of The Most Nonsensical Name Changes In Corporate History

After the $4.8 billion sale of its internet assets to Verizon Communications Inc. VZ, Yahoo! Inc. YHOO announced it would change the name of the RemainCo, which includes stakes in Yahoo Japan YAHOY and Alibaba Group Holding Ltd BABA, to Altaba Inc.

While Altaba sounds a lot better than RemainCo, both names are a little bland. Below is a list of four other strange and nonsensical name changes in corporate history.

Comcast

Back in 2010, cable TV and internet behemoth Comcast Corporation CMCSA decided to re-brand its service in 1 U.S. market, changing its name to Xfinity. How do you even pronounce that? Ex-finity? Ksfinity? (Voiceless velar fricative sound)-finity?

Phillip Morris

It’s hard to understand why a company with such an established name like Phillip Morris would change it. However, it did, to Altria Group Inc MO, back in 2003, in an attempt to distance the holding company from the stigma related to cigarettes. We are "more than a tobacco company," an exec told the New York Times in 2001. As one might figure, people did not forget about the negative publicity, but instead became increasingly aware of how toxic Altria’s products were.

Spike TV

Talking about nonsense, few name changes were more futile than that of The National Network’s. Named the Nashville Network until the year 2000, The National Network lasted three years. The company had planned to change the name to Spike TV in 2003, marketing it as the first network for men. However, just a few days before the launch, movie director Spike Lee won an injunction and blocked the modification, arguing that people would associate the channel to his name.

A month later, nonetheless, a court ruled in favor of The National Network, which finally got to rebrand its channel, although its success was quite limited.

Standard Oil Company

Standard Oil Company became famous for investing drive-through gas stations and gasoline tanker trucks. However, when it broke up, one of its units, Standard Oil of Indiana, was renamed Amoco – after American Oil Co. The terribly-named company was then acquired by BP plc (ADR) BP, saving it from an era where the large Latin population in the U.S. would think of a booger (moco means booger in Spanish) every time the company was named.