From where did the coffee company Starbucks take its name?

Starbucks Corporation, now known as a multinational chain of coffee houses, was founded on 30 March 1971 as a single establishment selling coffee beans, in Pike Place Market, Elliott Bay, Seattle, Washington, USA – see picture. The founding partners Jerry Baldwin, Zev Siegl and Gordon Bowker had university backgrounds in history and English and this may have influenced their approach to choosing a brand name for their new enterprise.

The partners wanted the company’s name to suggest a sense of adventure, a connection to the Northwest and a link to the seafaring tradition of the early coffee traders. They thought of calling the new coffee company “Pequod,” after the ship in Herman Melville‘s classic novel “Moby-Dick.”

The partner Gordon Bowker was also a partner with Terry Heckler in the advertising agency Heckler Bowker. Heckler ridiculed the idea of calling a coffee company “Pequod”: would a cup of “Pee-kwod” appeal to customers? The search for a name continued. While researching names of mining camps on Mt. Rainier, near Seattle, Heckler came across “Starbo,” which sounded powerful and led the team back to their idea of referencing the novel “Moby-Dick.” In “Moby-Dick,” the name of the first mate on the “Pequod” was Starbuck. A brand was born.