Twitter- The original project code name for Twitter was twttr. Later it was changed to twitter.
"[W]e came across the word "twitter," and it was just perfect. The definition was "a short burst of inconsequential information," and "chirps from birds." And that’s exactly what the product was."- Jack Dorsey
Google- The project for the new search engine was originally nicknamed "BackRub" because the system checked backlinks to estimate the importance of a site. They later changed it to Google. Originating from a misspelling of the word "googol" the number one followed by one hundred zeros. This signified the amount of information the search engine could handle.
Facebook- The original name was facemash. Then became Thefacebook. Until Paypal invested and they dropped the "The" and it became facebook.com.
Yahoo!- Was originally called "David and Jerry's Guide to the World Wide Web." It then was renamed "Yahoo!". Throughout the 90'2 Yahoo diversified into a web protal and it kept growing until it is what it is today.
Yelp!- Yelp is a contraction of the Yellow Pages name.
Wikipedia- Wikipedia began as a complementary project for Nupedia. It was created as a wiki for the Nupedia. It was launched January 15, 2001 on http://www.wikipedia.com/.
Amazon- Named after the world's largest river. Since 2000, Amazon's logotype is an arrow leading from A to Z, representing customer satisfaction (as it forms a smile); a goal was to have every product in the alphabet.
It seems that for these companies the name of the company just kind of evolves into something people recongnize. There doesnt seem to be a system or science when these people chose names.
