I found this informative list at FortyMedia… It’s some interesting information about how coompanies arrived at their names:
Adidas: from the name of the founder Adolf (Adi) Dassler.
Adobe: from the name of the river Adobe Creek that ran behind the houses of founders John Warnock and Chuck Geschke.
Apache: according to the project’s 1997 FAQ: “The Apache group was formed around a number of people who provided patch files that had been written for NCSA httpd 1.3. The result after combining them was A PAtCHy server.”
Arby’s: the enunciation of the initials of its founders, the Raffel Brothers
Arm & Hammer: the founder’s name was Armand Maccabee. The word maccabee is a biblical Hebrew name that translates to the English – hammer.
BIC Corporation: the pen company was named after one of its founders, Marcel Bich. He dropped the final ‘h’ to avoid a potentially inappropriate English pronunciation of the name.
eBay: Pierre Omidyar, who had created the Auction Web trading website, had formed a web consulting concern called Echo Bay Technology Group. “Echo Bay” didn’t refer to the town in Nevada, “It just sounded cool,” Omidyar reportedly said. Echo Bay Mines Limited, a gold mining company, had already taken EchoBay.com, so Omidyar registered what (at the time) he thought was the second best name: eBay.com.
Häagen-Dazs: contrary to common belief the name is not European: it is simply two made-up words meant to look European to American eyes.
Hasbro: founded by Henry and Helal Hassenfeld, the “Hassenfeld Brothers”.
Kodak: Both the Kodak camera and the name were the invention of founder George Eastman. The letter “K” was a favorite with Eastman; he felt it a strong and incisive letter. He tried out various combinations of words starting and ending with “K”.
Mercedes: from the first name of the daughter of Emil Jellinek, who distributed cars of the early Daimler company around 1900.
Nokia: started as a wood-pulp mill, the company expanded into producing rubber products in the Finnish city of Nokia. The company later adopted the city’s name.
Pepsi: named from the digestive enzyme pepsin.
Raytheon: “Light of the gods.” Maker of missiles such as Patriot, Maverick, Sidewinder and Tomahawk, among other military technology.
Reebok: alternate spelling of rhebok (Pelea capreolus), an African antelope.
Samsonite: named from the Biblical character Samson, renowned for his strength.
Sprint: from its parent company, Southern Pacific Railroad INTernal Communications. At the time, pipelines and railroad tracks were the cheapest place to lay communications lines, as the right-of-way was already leased or owned.
Starbucks: named after Starbuck, a character in Herman Melville’s whaling novel, Moby-Dick.
Taco Bell: named after founder Glen Bell.