The Strange Roots

Amazon 📦

Amazon: Jeff Bezos chose the name Amazon after a flicking through the dictionary looking for a word beginning with 'A' as search engines used to return results alphabetically.

His company was initially called Cadabara, a shortened version of Abracadabra, but he changed it after a lawyer misheard the name as cadaver (a body). Bezos apparently settled on Amazon because it was "exotic and different" and just as the river is the biggest in the world, he hoped to build the biggest bookstore in the world.

Root: The word amazon has an unkown etymology. The most commonly repeated but disputed theory is it comes from the Greek a- (ἀ-) and mazos (μαζός) meaning 'without breast' because Amazonian women allegedly cut off their right breast so it was easier to use a bow and arrow. There is no evidence of this tradition being true in any ancient works of art.

Sources: Jeff Bezos: The Founder of Amazon.com