What’s in a name? Research shows your name alters how people perceive you from the moment they learn it. Your first initial could change your entire life without you knowing it because we’re subconsciously attracted to cities and jobs that share the same letter. So names carry a lot of weight even when we don’t realize it. Given that, it makes you wonder about things that have had name changes. Would you think of all of these things the same way if their names hadn’t been changed?
10. The Powerpuff Girls Were Originally Called the Whoopass Girls
Most people have at least a passing awareness of the Powerpuff Girls. The cartoon has been around for a quarter of a century now, so you have to be under a rock to at least not recognize the name. Three colorful girls with stumpy hands who occasionally beat up monkeys and other villains, it’s a whole thing.
Created by Craig McCracken, the cartoonist had no idea he’d be creating a global phenomenon since most people can’t really predict such things. But somehow the show struck a chord, the characters became beloved, and now he has a legacy that will go on long after he’s gone. And to think it may have never been.
Before Powerpuff Girls were Powerpuff Girls, they were the Whoopass Girls, which sounds a little less cutesy and more like an off-brand wrestling promotion. McCracken came up with the idea in 1991 as a sort of parody of manly superheroes. It took him seven more years, and some failed shorts before he finally got to take the reins and make the show for real, and by then the name had been tweaked.
9. Pepsi Was First Called Brad’s Drink
Any time someone invents something there must be a struggle to decide if they need a clever, catchy name or if they just want to name it after themselves. Back in the day, many inventions were named after the man in charge – Ford, graham crackers, Salisbury steak. It was every inventor or CEO’s dream to make everyone know their name.
These days, inventions and products tend to have catchier names that are descriptive and sometimes just random words that need to be explained before you fully understand them. Take Pepsi, for example. That word means nothing on its own but it was derived from Pep Kola, which the inventor bought out, and also pepsin, a digestive aid which Pepsi marketed itself as in early ads. Pepsin was one of the original ingredients but was later removed.
Before Pepsi was making you think peppy thoughts, inventor Caleb Bradham had a different moniker in mind. He called it Brad’s Drink, which is the sort of thing you should only see on a homemade label in the office fridge over Brad from accounting’s matcha.
We’ll never know for sure if Pepsi would have been as popular if it kept the name, but do you really think it would have been?
8. Doctors Called AIDS GRID at First
AIDS was coined in 1982 and stands for “acquired immune deficiency syndrome.” We all know it as one of the most serious sexually transmitted diseases ever. Over 40 million people have died from it.
Before AIDS was as well understood as it is today, there were other names shopped around to describe it and the most shocking and baffling of them was GRID. Like AIDS, GRID is an acronym. It stands for “gay-related immune deficiency.” You can see where the stereotype that this was a “gay” disease came from. The medical community was very much behind it.
Doctors in 1981 were diagnosing it in gay male patients and some even described it as “gay cancer.” It took years to overcome the stigma that it was an explicitly gay disease and, in some places, that stigma still exists. On the upside, medical advances have ensured that many people who get HIV, the disease that causes AIDS, can still live long and happy lives.
7. Google First Called Themselves BackRub
Google is so ubiquitous these days that it’s a verb. You Google information to learn things. Google is the de facto king of the search engine world, even though there are several other choices available. The word itself is a nod to “googol” which is a preposterous number – one followed by 100 zeroes. So it’s something big, and that makes sense in context.
Back in the day before Google was official, the crew behind the company was still playing with name ideas and their first choice was Backrub. The biggest search engine and one of the most recognizable tech companies of all time could have been named after something vaguely creepy dudes offer you unsolicited.
Why Backrub? Because it analyzed “backlinks” to sort of rank and prioritize websites. You know, what Google does. But with an off-putting name.
6. Hot Pockets Were Allegedly Called Chunk Stuffers
Comedian Jim Gaffigan is known for doing funny and absurd bits that are generally clean and mostly family-friendly. One of his most famous jokes is about Hot Pockets. Over the course of the bit, he really lays into Hot Pockets as being kind of shameful and gross, but still something he eats.
Whether you agree with Jim or not, try to imagine a world in which Hot Pockets exist, these doughy balls of cheese and meat and sauce in various flavors, only now they’re called Chunk Stuffers. Word is they were invented in the ’70s and only briefly had that name before someone changed it.
It’s hard to find any packaging to suggest Chunk Stuffers were ever really on the shelf and this may be a little piece of weird, microwave myth-making making but many sources do claim it as fact. Stuff those chunks with a grain of salt, just to be safe.
5. Brown-Eyed Girl by Van Morrison Was Originally Brown-Skinned Girl
“Brown-Eyed Girl“ by Van Morrison is immensely popular and arguably the singer’s most famous song. It’s catchy, memorable, and easy to sing along with. But it wasn’t always called “Brown-Eyed Girl” at all. Morrison himself said he meant to call the song “Brown-Skinned Girl“; he just wrote it down wrong after he recorded it.
Many of Morrison’s influences were blues and jazz singers so people understandably wondered if the song was meant to be about a black girl, since he also admitted it was a Calypso beat-inspired track with a Jamaican influence.
The song never mentioned the girl’s skin tone at all, just her eyes, so the title being different does seem odd. But it has been pointed out that the song also rhythmically resembles a track called “Brownskin Gal“ by a Bahamian guitarist named Joseph Spence so it was speculated Morrison changed it so it would seem less like he was ripping off another musician.
4. The Hamburglar Was Originally Called The Lone Jogger
As a company, McDonald’s has put a ton of effort into trying to market itself to every living thing on this planet. They’ve sold pizza, salads, spaghetti, fish, chicken, beef, ribs, ice cream, lobster, and probably 100 other things. Along with that they’ve used a baffling array of mascots.
Ronald McDonald has long been the face of the chain, but he comes with the Grimace, Mayor McCheese, the Nugget Buddies, the Fry Guys, and, of course, the Hamburglar. The Hamburglar is just your everyday masked bandit who wants to steal hamburgers. Seems legit.
When he first debuted in 1971, the Hamburglar was part of a duo with another villain named Captain Crook. Crook was a full-on pirate captain with a parrot and everything. And the Hamburglar? He was Crook’s sidekick but for a time he was known as The Lone Jogger. He puttered around spouting gibberish sounds and flung back his cape to expose his name on a shirt kind of like a deranged flasher.
If there was a thought process behind a gibberish-spewing guy who didn’t really jog being called the Lone Jogger and enjoying McDonald’s breakfast, it was never clearly established.
3. Regina, Saskatchewan Was Originally Called Piles of Bones
Canada is a land filled with unique place names. Moose Jaw, Flin Flon, Punkeydoodles Corners, and a few that we could mention just for immature laughs but we won’t. Except for Regina. Like it or not, the capital of Saskatchewan has been the butt of jokes for years because it sounds like you’re saying something else when you say it.
Ironically, Regina was not the first choice of name for the city. Like most of Canada, the land was already known to the indigenous people who lived in and around the area before European settlers arrived and they called it oskana ka-asast?ki. That translates roughly to “bone piles” and so early settlers called it Pile of Bones.
Pile of Bones was not a metaphor. Bison bones were brought there and piled high to honor the spirits of the animals as it was a traditional hunting ground for them. The piles were stacked about six feet high and 40 feet around at the base.
Eventually, Europeans made a permanent settlement there and changed the name to Regina in honor of Queen Victoria. That doesn’t sound like it makes sense at first, but Regina is Latin for “Queen,” so they thought it was a good idea.
2. Melbourne, Australia Was Nearly Called Batmania
Melbourne is the second largest city in Australia behind Sydney, and the two are only separated by about 400,000 people. Even if someone knows little about Australian geography, there’s a good chance they’re aware of Melbourne. There’s also a good chance it would have been so much more well-known if they’d stuck with one of the original names that was proposed for it.
In June 1835 a man named John Batman set foot on the land that would one day become Melbourne and thought it was a solid place to build a town. Two months later a ship landed and that is widely recognized as the moment the city was founded and then named after Lord Melbourne, the Prime Minister of Britain at the time. But let’s go back to Batman.
Before Melbourne was chosen in 1837, it was recognized that John Batman had technically decided on the spot first so many it should have been named in his honor. Batmania was a contender for the city’s name but was ultimately ignored. However, it was a genuine possibility at least for a time.
1. Girl Used to Refer to Both Male and Female Children
In modern Western society, there are some clear naming conventions. You have boy names and girl names and then a narrow band of gender-neutral names. Most parents ascribe to this theory when naming a child. Anything outside “the norm” is considered just that, abnormal. It leads to things like Johnny Cash singing about a boy named Sue and John Wayne choosing John over his birth name Marion.
Who decides what’s a boy’s name and what’s a girl’s name, you may wonder. Obviously, we can look to history as a guide – a thousand years of men named William makes it seem like William is definitely a boy’s name. But how do you know what a boy is? Once upon a time, boys were called girls. Weird, right?
Back in the 1300s, the word “girl” just meant child. No one cared if the child was male or female, they were all girls. If you wanted a distinction, they were “knave girls” which were what we’d call boys, and “gay girls” which we’d call girls.