Did you know the name 'Google' is actually a typo? All about the search giant's origin

Interestingly, Sergey Brin and Larry Page had almost named their search engine 'Backrub'.

Google, one of the world's most popular search engines, has an intriguing and somewhat accidental origin story. Recently, a resurfaced Quora post sparked curiosity about whether "Google" is an acronym, leading to various theories. Some incorrectly suggested it stands for the “Global Organization of Oriented Group Language of Earth.” This query prompted users to delve into the true etymology of the name, which dates back to the company’s inception by Sergey Brin and Larry Page in 1998, while they were PhD students at Stanford University.

In truth, the name "Google" is a playful twist on the mathematical term “Googol,” which denotes the number 10 raised to the power of 100, or 1 followed by 100 zeroes. This term was originally coined in 1920 by Milton Sirotta, the 9-year-old nephew of American mathematician Edward Kasner, who frequently referenced the figure in his 1940 book “Mathematics and the Imagination.” Sirotta believed that such an extraordinarily large number deserved an equally whimsical and memorable name, capturing the essence of something vast and infinite.

The name "Google" emerged during a brainstorming session by the company's founders, Brin and Page. They originally intended to name their company "Googol." However, when checking domain availability, a friend of theirs mistakenly spelled it as “Google.” Page decided he preferred this misspelling, leading to the birth of Google Inc.

Interestingly, Brin and Page had almost named their search engine “Backrub” because it used backlinks to rank pages. As noted by All That’s Interesting, “if you’re glad you can ‘Google’ something instead of ‘BackRubbing’ it, you can thank a typo, an incredibly large number, and a nine-year-old boy.”