LIST OF COMPANY NAME ETYMOLOGY - 'A'

A&M Records – named after founders Herb Alpert and Jerry Moss
A&P – from Atlantic & Pacific in Great Atlantic and Pacific Tea Company, a US-based supermarket chain.
A&W Root Beer – named after founders Roy Allen and Frank Wright
ABN AMRO – in the 1960s, the Nederlandsche Handel-Maatschappij (Dutch Trading Society; 1824) and De Twentsche Bank merged to form the Algemene Bank Nederland (ABN; General Bank of the Netherlands); in 1966, the Amsterdamsche Bank and the Rotterdamsche Bank merged to form the Amro Bank; in 1991, ABN and Amro Bank merged to form ABN AMRO.
Accenture – from "Accent on the future". The name Accenture was proposed by a company employee in Norway as part of an internal name finding process (BrandStorming). Before January 1, 2001 the company was called Andersen Consulting.
Adecco – named from the merger of Swiss staffing company Adia with French staffing company Ecco.
Adidas – from the name of the founder Adolf (Adi) Dassler.
Adobe Systems – from the Adobe Creek that ran behind the house of co-founder John Warnock.
Ahold – a holding company of Albert Heijn and other supermarkets. For its 100th anniversary in 1987, Ahold was granted the title of Koninklijke ("Royal" in Dutch) by the Queen of the Netherlands, changing its name to Koninklijke Ahold (Royal Ahold).
Akai – named for its founder, Masukichi Akai.
Akamai – from the Hawaiian word akamai meaning smart or clever; the company defines it as "intelligent, clever and cool".
AKZO – named from the 1969 merger of Algemene Kunstzijde Unie (AKU) and Koninklijke Zout Organon (KZO).
Alcatel-Lucent – Alcatel was named from Société Alsacienne de Constructions Atomiques, de Télécomunications et d'Electronique. It took over Lucent Technologies in 2006.
Alcoa – Aluminum Company of America.
Aldi – portmanteau for Albrecht (name of the founders) and discount
Alfa Romeo – the company was originally known as ALFA, an acronym for Anonima Lombarda Fabbrica Automobili. When Nicola Romeo bought ALFA in 1915, his surname was appended.
Alstom – set up as Alsthom in 1928 by Société Alsacienne de Constructions Mécaniques and Compagnie Française Thomson-Houston, it changed the spelling to Alstom in 1997.
AltaVista – Spanish for "high view".
ALZA – from the name of the founder Alex Zaffaroni.
Amazon.com – founder Jeff Bezos renamed the company Amazon (from the earlier name of Cadabra.com) after the world's most voluminous river, the Amazon. He saw the potential for a larger volume of sales in an online (as opposed to a bricks and mortar) bookstore. (Alternative: Amazon was chosen to cash in on the popularity of Yahoo, which listed entries alphabetically.)
AmBev – American Beverage Company, the largest Brazilian beverage company and fourth in the world. In 2004 it merged with Interbrew to create Inbev
AMC Theatres – American Multi-Cinema: the company pioneered multi-screen cinemas.
AMD – Advanced Micro Devices
AMOCO – AMerican Oil COmpany – now part of BP
Amstrad – Amstrad Consumer Electronics plc was founded by Sir Alan Michael Sugar in the UK. The name is a contraction of Alan Michael Sugar Trading.
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.
Apple – For the favorite fruit of co-founder Steve Jobs and/or for the time he worked at an apple orchard, and to distance itself from the cold, unapproachable, complicated imagery created by other computer companies at the time – which had names such as IBM, DEC, Cincom and Tesseract
Apricot Computers – early UK-based microcomputer company founded by ACT (Applied Computer Techniques), a business software and services supplier. The company wanted a "fruity" name (Apple and Acorn were popular brands) that included the letters A, C and T. Apricot fit the bill.
Arby's – the enunciation of the initials of its founders, the Raffel Brothers. The partners wanted to use the name Big Tex, but were unsuccessful in negotiating with the Akron businessman who was already using the name. So, Forrest said, "We came up with Arby's, which stands for R.B., the initials of Raffel Brothers, although I guess customers might think the initials stand for roast beef."
Arcelor – created in 2001 by a merger of Arbed (Luxembourg), Aceralia (Spain) and Usinor (France) with the ambition of becoming a major player in the steel industry.
Areva – named from the region of Ávila in northern Spain, location of the Arevalo abbey. Arevalo was shorted to Arevo.
Aricent – communications software company name created in 2006 by combining two words "arise" and "ascent".
ARM Limited – named after the microprocessor developed by small UK company Acorn as a successor to the 6502 used in its BBC Microcomputer. ARM originally stood for Acorn Risc Machine. When the company was spun off with backing from Apple and VTI, this was changed to Advanced Risc Machines.
Arm & Hammer – based on the arm and hammer of Vulcan, the Roman god of fire and metalworking. It was previously the logo of the Vulcan Spice Mills in Brooklyn. When James Church, the son of Church & Dwight founder Austin Church, came to Church and Dwight from Vulcan Spice Mills, he brought the logo with him.
ARP – company that made analog synthesizers in the 1970s, named after founder Alan Robert Pearlman.
Artis (zoo in Amsterdam) – from the Latin phrase, Natura Artis Magistra, or Nature is Art's Teacher
Asda – Asda Stores Limited was founded as Associated Dairies & Farm Stores Ltd in 1949. However the formation of the Asda name occurred in 1965 with the merger of the Asquith chain of three supermarkets and Associated Dairies; Asda is an abbreviation of Asquith and Dairies., a large UK supermarket chain now a subsidiary of Wal-Mart
ASICS – an acronym for Anima Sana In Corpore Sano, which, translated from Latin, means "Healthy soul in a healthy body". Originally the citation is mens sana in corpore sano, but MSICS does not sound as good.
Ask.com – search engine formerly named after Jeeves, the gentleman's gentleman (valet, not butler) in P. G. Wodehouse's series of books. Ask Jeeves was shortened to Ask in 2006.
Aston Martin – from the "Aston Hill" races (near Aston Clinton) where the company was founded, and the surname of Lionel Martin, the company's founder.
AT&T – the American Telephone and Telegraph Corporation officially changed its name to AT&T in the 1990s.
Atari – named from the board game Go. "Atari" is a Japanese word to describe a position where an opponent's stones are in danger of being captured. It is similar, though not identical, to "check" in chess. The original games company was American but wanted a Japanese-sounding name.
ATI – Array Technologies Incorporated
ATS – Auto Technik Spezialerzeugnisse, a German company producing light alloy wheels and motor parts, which ran its own Formula 1 racing team in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
Audi – Latin translation of the German name 'Horch'. The founder August Horch left the company after five years, but still wanted to manufacture cars. Since the original 'Horch' company was still there, he called his new company Audi, the Latin form of his last name. In English it is: "hark!".