What was Amazon’s original corporate name when it was incorporated in 1994?

Amazon’s original corporate name when it was incorporated in 1994 was Cadabra, Inc. Jeff Bezos selected the name for the online bookstore he was developing, but it was soon changed after a lawyer misheard it as “cadaver.”

Bezos then registered the name Amazon, inspired by the enormous South American river. The name suggested scale and breadth, fitting his ambition to build a very large online store rather than a business limited to books.

Amazon began operations in July 1995 from Bezos’s garage in Bellevue, Washington. It initially sold books online, then expanded into music, video, electronics, cloud computing, logistics, advertising, and many other categories.

A common mix-up is the name Relentless, which Bezos also registered as a domain and company name. The Amazon name became the public identity, while the legal corporate name eventually became Amazon.com, Inc.