McDonald's officially became McDonald's Corporation in 1960.
The corporate-name change reflected the company's growth beyond the original McDonald brothers' restaurant operation. By this point, Ray Kroc had built a large franchise business around standardized procedures, consistent branding, and the expanding McDonald's restaurant network.
The name is often confused with other important dates in McDonald's history. The McDonald brothers opened their San Bernardino restaurant in 1940, reorganized it around the Speedee Service System in 1948, and Ray Kroc opened the first franchised McDonald's location in Des Plaines, Illinois, in 1955.
Corporate naming was one part of a broader transformation from a single family-run restaurant concept into an international company. The Golden Arches logo followed soon afterward, giving the expanding corporation a unified visual identity.