Nike changed its corporate name from Blue Ribbon Sports to Nike, Inc. in 1978.
Blue Ribbon Sports had been founded in 1964 as a distributor of Japanese athletic shoes. The business introduced its own Nike-branded footwear in the early 1970s, and the Nike name gradually became more important than the original corporate identity.
The company’s naming history has several milestones that are easy to mix up. Nike began using the name for its own products in 1971, the Swoosh was designed that same year, and the corporation officially adopted Nike, Inc. in 1978.
By then, Nike was no longer simply a distributor. It had developed its own footwear, logo, athlete relationships, and marketing approach. The 1978 name change formally aligned the company’s legal identity with the brand that consumers already recognized.