Gyeswho

I was looking up info about my new Gunnar "Roadie"and found the company was named after the owner's dog. I chose to explore a lil' more and was surprised behind the origin of the name, besides it's contemporary definition. A good amount of companies are named after people, but share what you find since you might be surprised (even last names of people come from somewhere right?) I'll start:

Gunnar - fighter, soldier and attacker,but mostly is referred to by the viking saying which mean Brave and Bold warrior (gunnr "war" and arr "warrior")
* "Roadie" - a person employed by a touring band of musicians to set up and maintain equipment.

Mercier - haberdasher
* "Kilo" - representing Greek word "chī́lioi" for 1,000
* "WT" - wide tire or abbreviation for weight

Surly - bad-tempered and unfriendly, menacing or threatening in appearance
* "Cross-check" - to obstruct in ice hockey or lacrosse by thrusting one's stick held in both hands across an opponent's face or body

KtownScott

Here's what's behind mine.
https://www.bikeforums.net/showthread...get-to-name-it
What a mistake!

Scrodzilla

Actually, in your bike's case it stands for "wide tires".

Gyeswho

lol, I knew that, I forgot to put that

hairnet

Raleigh - Raleigh street, Nottingham - Sir Walter Raleigh
Alyeska - Native Aleut word for Alaska "mainland" - now Mount Alyeska with ski resorts and ****

broakland

Broakland: slang, as in "we're broke here in Oakland"

Higher Class

Spooky - Couldn't find a meaning behind this. Just a name I guess.
Skeletor - Enemy on the television show, He-Man and the Masters of the Universe
HavocStaff - Skeletor's weapon.

adriano 

silver. black. i did some auscultation on the top tube and down tubes, and they spoke to me. steel is for serious.

Jaytron

I thought this was going to be a thread about the names we've given our bikes. This is not nearly as fun as I imagined it would be.

Gyeswho

why not make a thread about it then? It's a great idea

adriano 

kilo wt, lets see, that was named by adriano.

https://www.bikeforums.net/showthread...=1#post8150062

marino ceviche, lets see, that was named by adriano because ceviche is tasty.

adriano 

bbattle

Bianchi - last name of Eduardo who started his company in 1885. Also means whites in Italian; from the singlur bianco. In English, he would be Eddie Whites.

San Jose - name of several towns and cities around the world. That would be Saint Joseph, patron saint of workers and children's aspirin.

redpear

Affinity Lo Pro

Affinity - a word that means a passion or exceptional interest in something

Lo Pro - short for 'low profile' I assume. A jack way of describing a frame with a pointless downward-sloping top tube.

mickey@spooky

The dudes who started the company back in '92 went to highschool with Paul Miller aka DJ Spooky That Subliminal Kid. Most people would never guess that.

It's a good number of characters for a downtube too. Spooky germinated from interesting scene back then. Everyone was(and I am too) from the NYC Positive Straight-Edge Hardcore scene(that's positive punk music about fluffy bunnies and high-fives with your bros and not getting wasted,btw) and grew up starting their own bands and putting out their own records and fanzines so starting their own bike company was 2nd nature when they decided they weren't into the geometry of mtb frames at the time. Rodney and they guys from Zoo York were just starting to kick-ass around then and gave a lot of encouragement as did other people who ran their own labels and rad bands and merch distros helped sort things out too. Spooky was one of the first openly punk rock owned and operated MTB companies and a bunch of people fell in love with the brand immediately.
A few years later add Frank The Welder of Yeti fame moving into town(around this time I got sucked into the company as a 14 year old geeky XC racer/unpaid errand boy/precocious marketing exec) and there was the firepower to help get a bunch of rider-owned bmx companies like t1, Kink and FBM off the ground by giving them terrifyingly generous terms for the bikes were were already building far too cheaply. There was just no margin and things eventually ground to stop. Our UK mtb distribuitor shadily-shafted us around the same time. That blew because we were ranked the #2 or 3 brand in UK mtb magazine reader surveys around them behind GT and swapping places with Kona for 2nd. Our DH racers were even on magazine covers back then, it was pretty ******.
Splat.
Once all of the statutes of limitations got cleared up for lawsuits and liens for the old entity I was encouraged to resurrect the brand. I spent the interim years going to college, racing full time and then starting my own coaching/promotions/management outfit to try to scrape a living. My patience has rewarded me with an even more stressful way to barely scrape by but for some reason I can't stop doing it. It's been in my DNA since I was a little kid so it's pretty hard to shake even though I'm 31 and sleep on a pile of frame boxes in the storage room and I could get a well paying job at a real bike company...

My dad actually came up with the name for the Skeletor. I never would of thought of it. At the time Michael Rassmussen was in yellow at the tour and some terrifying pictures of him from the medical examine were floating around;

One thing led to another and a model name was born.

adriano 

reminds me of


@3:45

GMJ

DK - Donkey Kong
Raleigh - Some city on the east side.