Oracle was originally named after Project Oracle.
Project Oracle was a database project developed for the Central Intelligence Agency by the company’s founders while they were working at Ampex. Larry Ellison, Bob Miner, and Ed Oates later used the project’s name when they founded Software Development Laboratories in 1977.
The company changed its name several times. It became Relational Software, Inc. in 1979 and adopted the name Oracle Corporation in 1982. Oracle’s early commercial success came from relational database software based on ideas described in a research paper by IBM computer scientist Edgar F. Codd.
The name is sometimes mistakenly attributed to an astronomy or space program. In this corporate history, Oracle refers specifically to the CIA project that inspired the young company’s original name.