Jeff Bezos originally named Amazon 'Cadabra' but changed it after a lawyer misheard it as 'cadaver.'

Jeff Bezos incorporated the company in Washington State on July 5, 1994, under the name Cadabra, Inc. The name was intended to evoke the magic of the phrase 'abracadabra' and the ease of online shopping. However, during a phone call with his lawyer, the name was misheard as 'cadaver,' which refers to a deceased human body used for medical research. This misunderstanding immediately signaled to Bezos that the brand name was problematic and lacked the positive energy he wanted for his startup.Bezos and his wife, MacKenzie Scott, explored several other names including 'Relentless.com' and 'Browse.com' before settling on Amazon. He specifically looked through a dictionary for words starting with 'A' because early internet search engines and website directories often listed results alphabetically. Being at the top of the list was a critical competitive advantage for visibility in the mid-1990s.The choice of 'Amazon' was deeply symbolic of Bezos's business strategy. He viewed the Amazon River as the largest and most powerful river system in the world, and he intended for his bookstore to be the largest in existence. The website officially went live as Amazon.com on July 16, 1995, and within its first month, it had already sold books to people in all 50 U.S. states and 45 different countries.