A closer look
Jeff Bezos originally intended to name his online bookstore 'Cadabra' as a reference to the magical incantation abracadabra, hoping to imply that the shopping experience was pure magic. His lawyer rightly pointed out that the name sounded dangerously similar to the word cadaver when spoken over a spotty telephone connection, which is undeniably a terrible association for a burgeoning retail business. Bezos quickly pivoted to Amazon to suggest sheer massive scale and to ensure the company would show up first in alphabetical website directories, which were somehow a real thing in the nineties. It is chilling to imagine a timeline where millions of people rely on a logistics empire named after a dead body for their two-day shipping!
