What name did McDonald’s Corporation adopt in 1960, replacing its earlier corporate name?

McDonald’s Corporation adopted that name in 1960, replacing the earlier corporate name McDonald’s Systems, Inc.

The change reflected the company’s expansion beyond the original restaurant operation and its growing franchise business. Ray Kroc had joined the McDonald brothers’ restaurant venture in 1954 and opened his first franchised McDonald’s restaurant in Des Plaines, Illinois, in 1955.

The corporation’s name is often confused with the restaurant brand itself. “McDonald’s” can refer to the public-facing restaurant chain, while McDonald’s Corporation is the legal corporate entity behind the global business. The company’s later international growth made a standardized corporate identity increasingly important.

The 1960 renaming also came just before a major visual-branding milestone: the company introduced the familiar golden-arches logo in 1962. Thus, the corporate-name change and the modern logo belong to the same formative period, but they were separate developments.