Name-changers
NAFF ORIGINAL TITLES OF CLASSICS
THE SPICE
GIRLS: The all-girl pop band, starring the likes of Geri Halliwell, was first formed in 1994 under the name Tonic.
VOLLEYBALL: Invented by American PE teacher William G. Morgan in 1895 as Mintonette, it was later changed when an observer noticed how the ball volleyed over the net.
TABLE TENNIS: The sport, also known as whiff waff and ping pong, was originally launched in 1891 by British firm Jaques of London under the name Gossima.
CROQUET: Before this name was first used for the game in 1856, it was known as pall-mall, originally from the Latin words for ball and mallet.
FRISBEE: In the 1950s American Fred Morrison at first called his flying disc the Pluto Platter after the UFO craze.
JAMES BOND: In author Ian Fleming’s original draft for debut 007 novel, Casino Royale, his spy was called James Secretan.
MICKEY MOUSE: The loveable cartoon character was called Mortimer Mouse, until Walt Disney’s wife Lilly said she thought the name too pompous.
CORONATION STREET: When Tony Warren devised the TV soap opera in 1960 it was to be launched as Florizel Street until a studio cleaner said it sounded like a disinfectant.
GOOGLE: When Americans Larry Page and Sergey Brin first came up with their search engine they called it BackRub, as it checked backlinks to work out the importance of a website.
CLUEDO: The popular crime board game was patented in 1944 as simply Murder! by its British designer Anthony E.Pratt.
NISSAN: The Japanese car brand was known as Datsun in Britain after the word “dat” for lightning fast until a multi-million rebrand in the 1980s.
DRACULA: Bram Stoker’s famous horror novel was called The Dead Un-Dead until it was changed just before publication in 1897.
NIKE: The footwear brand was started in the US in 1964 as Blue Ribbon Sports until that was swapped for the name of the Greek goddess of victory in 1971.
PEPSI: Launched in 1893 as Brad’s Drink, US inventor Caleb
Bradham rebranded his fizz as PepsiCola five years later as he believed it relieved dyspepsia, or indigestion.
SNICKERS: Until 1990 the chocolate bar was called Marathon in the UK until being changed to conform to its name abroad.
VASELINE: The skin product was initially launched by American Robert Chesebrough as Wonder Jelly in 1870.
BIG MAC: The iconic burger, created by Jim Delligatti in 1967, wasn’t a hit under the name Aristocrat until a 21-year-old secretary at McDonald’s crowned it a Big Mac.
THE FULL MONTY: The smash 1997 movie about stripping steel workers, was originally titled Eggs, Beans and Chippendales.