eBay What a Strange Name for a Billion Dollar

eBay What a Strange Name for a Billion Dollar Corporation

Every day millions of eBay users log onto their accounts to buy and sell, and dont have any idea how eBay got its name. They might not really care, either. Like the person who turns on the TV and just wants it to come on and play their favorite television show, many eBay users probably arent curious about the fine points of the company. But its a fun story and all true eBay enthusiasts will be interested in knowing the history.

Just ask some friends what “eBay” stands for and youre probably going to get an answer like “its maybe an abbreviation for electronics bay or ecommerce bay or something like that”. But while the “e” could stand for lots of things, if you look up different definitions for “bay” theres just no way to stretch any of them so they have anything to do with an online auction site. However if we search way back to 1995, the year eBay was founded, we can find some clues.

An explanation youll probably see on the Internet, and even in some books about eBay, says that the auction site was created by a young computer programmer named...