What was the original name of Facebook when it launched in 2004?

Facebook’s original name when it launched in 2004 was TheFacebook.

Mark Zuckerberg began coding the site in January 2004 while he was a Harvard student. He and Eduardo Saverin each agreed to invest $1,000, and the service launched on February 4, 2004, at thefacebook.com. It was initially designed as an online student directory for Harvard College.

The name drew on the traditional “face book,” a directory containing students’ names and photographs. The project quickly spread beyond Harvard to other universities, including Stanford, Columbia, and Yale, during 2004.

A common mix-up is Facemash, another Zuckerberg-created site from 2003. Facemash compared students’ photographs and was an earlier project, not the original name of Facebook. The company later dropped “The” from its name in 2005 after acquiring the facebook.com domain.