Do you know the original names of these tech companies?

On the anniversary of IBM becoming IBM, we’re reminded that many other famous technology companies also started off with a different name. How many of these do you know?

By Phil Johnson

eBay was started in 1995 as (no shocker) AuctionWeb, before becoming eBay in 1997.

Vizio was founded in 2002 as V Inc, and changed to Vizio in 2004.

Who knew?

That should get your Valentine’s Day dinner conversation rolling, right?! If your date still isn’t impressed, you can also share the much more recent name change by RIM to BlackBerry, but if s/he wasn’t impressed by your knowledge of Xerox’s history, that probably won’t help much.

Any other famous company name changes you want to share? Add em in the comments. Otherwise, here’s hoping Cupid is good to you tonight!

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Phil Johnson is a writer and editor for ITworld.com, after having survived 17 years in the corporate wild as a software/web developer, technical lead and project manager. Along the way he also used to write monologue jokes for David Letterman, Jimmy Fallon and Jay Leno.

In his spare time these days, when he's not chauffeuring his daughters to and from school, lessons and Justin Bieber movies (ugh), he enjoys drawing cartoons, tweeting about his life and taking pictures of cranes.