Uber was called UberCab before the company shortened its name to Uber in 2011.
Garrett Camp and Travis Kalanick helped create the service in San Francisco after developing the idea of requesting a ride through a mobile phone. The original business focused on arranging black-car rides, rather than immediately offering the broad range of transport services associated with Uber today.
The name UberCab combined “Uber,” meaning outstanding or superior, with “cab.” The company dropped “Cab” as its service expanded beyond traditional taxi-like transportation and as its branding became more concise.
Uber is sometimes described as a taxi company, but its central innovation was a technology platform connecting riders and drivers through a smartphone application. That model became a defining example of Silicon Valley platform culture and the gig economy.