What was McDonald’s original corporate name before it became McDonald’s Corporation in 1960?

Before becoming McDonald’s Corporation in 1960, the company was called McDonald’s System, Inc.

The name reflected the operating and franchising system developed around the McDonald brothers’ restaurant concept and later expanded by Ray Kroc. Kroc joined the business as a franchise agent in the 1950s and built a much larger organization around standardized restaurants, menus, training, and operating procedures.

The corporate name changed in 1960 as the business moved into a new stage of national expansion. “McDonald’s Corporation” was a more direct and durable name for a public-facing company whose restaurants were increasingly identified simply as McDonald’s.

The renaming is distinct from the restaurant’s earlier history. The McDonald brothers opened their redesigned Speedee Service System restaurant in 1948, while the corporate-name change came after Kroc’s expansion of the franchise network.