Amazon was called Cadabra in its 1994 founding documents before Jeff Bezos renamed it.
Bezos incorporated the company in July 1994 as Cadabra, Inc., a shortened form of “abracadabra.” His lawyer reportedly misheard the name as “cadaver” during a telephone conversation, which helped motivate the search for a clearer brand.
The company became Amazon in 1995, shortly before its online bookstore launched. Bezos chose the name partly because the Amazon River suggested enormous scale, and because names beginning with “A” appeared early in alphabetical listings.
Amazon began as an online bookseller but expanded into electronics, cloud computing, advertising, entertainment, and logistics. Its transformation helped make it one of the world’s most valuable public companies. “Relentless” was another proposed name and remains associated with Amazon through the domain relentless.com.