Having a good name is very important. When we need to create a user in an application or choose the name of a character in a game, we spend a few minutes to see which one convinces us more. This is even more important when it comes to a company because if they are going to launch a product bearing their name, it needs to be strong and resonate well with people. First of all, marketing, wow.

Abbreviations such as Nintendo, Apple, Microsoft or IBM are strong and recognizable. Another name on this list is Sony. Interestingly, the Japanese giant was born with a very different name, which forced them to adapt shortly after his birth.

TTK. A few months after World War II, Imperial Navy veteran and electronics enthusiast Masaru Ibuka set up a radio repair shop in a Tokyo department store. In May of the same year, his army colleague Akio Morita came across an article in a local newspaper talking about Ibuka’s company and decided to join his former colleague. With family financing, they founded Tokyo Tsushin Kogyo KK (Tokyo Telecommunications Engineering Company).

Aside from radio repair, the company had the intention to innovate and create products, with its first birth being a malfunctioning electric rice cooker. It was basically a wooden tub with aluminum electrodes that produced undercooked or wet rice. It never came to market, but in the early years they also obtained important transistor licenses from Bell Labs to create radios that were not intended for military use.

rice cooker

something is not working. This innovative spirit led them to introduce the first recording cassette, the first magnetic tape recorder, the Type G, or the first transistor radio in Japan – the TR-55 – in Japan in 1947. Audio was Sony’s specialty in its early years with products for both government and homes, but what’s important to us in this story is that the name that appeared on the product ID cards was Tokyo Tsushin Kogyo.

Try saying “Tokyo Tsushin Kogyo” out loud and imagine going to the store to buy a Tokyo Tsushin Kogyo PlayStation 5. It may be a ‘simple’ name in Japan, but outside of Japan… things got complicated. By the late 50’s the company was trying to open up avenues in other markets and the original name wasn’t very commercial so they started exploring other avenues.

On Type-G you can still read the original company name on the front label

Controversy and globalization. We might think that the solution to the problem is to use abbreviations. If it was called ‘TTK’ it would be much easier to remember. And yes, but the problem was that there was already a company known as TTK: Tokyo Kyuko railway company, so using the abbreviation was not an option. They also tried using the term ‘Totsuko’ during their trip to the United States to obtain a license, but Morita realized that Americans had problems with pronunciation and that something else needed to be done with the goal of becoming a world-class company. done.

In 1958, they chose the term ‘Sony’ as it was a play on the words ‘sonus’ (the Latin word meaning ‘sound’) and ‘sonny’ (a term by which young innovators of the time were known in Japan). ). It was a short and easy name to remember, but it had two problems. The first was traditional, as it was strange in Japanese culture for a company to use Roman letters instead of the traditional kanji (東京通信工業株式会社 is that of Tokyo Tsushin Kogyo KK). Second… What did ‘Sony’ mean?

The company’s main financing bank at the time tried to have its name changed to Sony Teletech or Sony Electronic Industries, as these were names that indicated the company’s area of ​​expertise. However, Morita did not accept this suggestion because he did not want the name to limit the number of sectors his company could be involved in.

TR-610. And thank goodness it didn’t, because Sony has shown over the years that it has a lot to say in different industries. The vast majority are linked to technology and the “Electronic industries”, but in fields such as video, audio, computing and video games this is a fundamental pillar today.

After the TR-55 and TTR-63 radios, which were very important for the company as a matter of curiosity, the company launched the TR-610 in 1958, which coincided with the name change. It was a success in the West and on the front we can see the large ‘SONY’ lettering that has been a hallmark of the company for generations.

Pictures | Sony/2, cjhunt

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