What is the origin of the Google company name?

Answer 1

Blame spell-checkTen 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 whether 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.

However accidental Page and Anderson were in the creation of the word 'Google,' its origins predate the 1990s. The earliest known use of the word 'Google' is attributed to a young artist, who in 1979 created a family of aliens from Mars known as the 'Google' They were published by filmmaker Kris Koster in the early 1980s.