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In the 1950s every company was literally called General X. General Electric, General Motors, and General Dynamics are still huge today
by FormerBandmate 3y ago
In the 1950s every company was literally called General X. General Electric, General Motors, and General Dynamics are still huge today
- sofixa 3y agoAnd it wasn't only in the US either, lots of big French companies were called Compagnie générale de X since the 1800s. Many modern behemoths such as Veolia, Transdev, Vivendi, Vinci trace their origins to such companies (sometimes the same - Compagnie générale des eaux was massive at some point).
- zero_shift 3y agoOr "Fabrique Nationale"
- furyofantares 3y agoI love how many banks are named First something or 1st something. Less so now, the past it seemed like it was almost all local banks.
- hakfoo 3y agoI think this actually had to with the specific legal framework some of those banks were chartered under. "National banks" were established under a specific charter type, which included the authority to issue paper currency under certain Federally-sanctioned conditions, so a lot of them took names that focused on them being National Banks. Thus, you got a lot of First National Bank of Pacoima, Second National of Pacoima, Merchants National, Totally Not A Scam National, etc. Even though that ended in the 1930s, the precedent for a lot of "First" and "National" names has persisted.
- mattkevan 3y agoAbsolutely love that naming convention. It’s so vague and specific at the same time. Like someone’s asked them what they do and they’ve just waved their hands vaguely and said, ‘oh stuff, you know, with electricity, that sort of thing’. The best is General Magic, whoever thought of that should’ve taken the rest of the week off.