The Strange Roots

Apple 🍎

Apple: The name was influenced by Steve Jobs' fruitarian diet and weekends at an apple farm that doubled as a hippy commune in Oregen. Jobs ate a vegetarian diet from an early age and would occasionally only eat one type of fruit or vegetable - typically apples or carrots - for weeks at a time.

The original Apple logo, designed by Rob Janoff, apparently had a bite mark to give a sense of scale and make it clear it was an apple not a cherry. The designer denied rumours the bite was a nod to computer scientist Alan Turing, who committed suicide by eating an apple poisoned with cyanide.

Jobs suggested the name Apple while co-founder Steve Wozniak was driving him home from the airport after one of his trips to the apple orchard. He liked the fact it sounded “fun, spirited and not intimidating”. Other names they had considered included Executex and Matrix Electronics. “We both tried to come up with technical-sounding names that were better, but we couldn’t think of any good ones," Wozniak said. "Apple was so much better, better than any other name we could think of.”

Sources: iWoz: Computer Geek to Cult Icon | Interview with Rob Janoff