Grab a grande latte and settle in. It's story time.
You’ll Never Guess How Starbucks Got Its Name
Updated on Jan. 14, 2025
For millions of us, a trip to Starbucks is as routine as a visit to the grocery store. Heck, tons of grocery stores have Starbucks cafes inside, just in case our energy dips somewhere between the chip and pickle aisles. But why was the name Starbucks chosen for the coffee giant?
From a brand-recognition standpoint, it goes against the grain. It doesn’t scream “coffee” in the same obvious way as, say, Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf. Even the Starbucks logo adds an air of mystery: It’s just as likely to represent a nautical-chic clothing boutique as an upscale seafood restaurant. And the name certainly doesn’t go with the Italian words used for Starbucks coffee sizes.
Yet half a century after the company’s founding, Starbucks is synonymous with coffee. So how did the little coffee shop that could land on a moniker and become a household name? Read on to find out the origin of the name—and the name it almost got stuck with instead.
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What was Starbucks almost called?
Starbucks co-founder Gordon Bowker says he and his partners almost named their coffee shop Cargo House. In an interview with the Seattle Times, he admits this would have been a “terrible, terrible mistake.”
We can’t help but agree. What would the nickname be? Cargies? Cargo? Cargs? House? No, thanks.
What other names were considered?
What Starbucks employees won’t tell you is that another, perhaps even worse, moniker was in the running. Apparently, the name Pequod (PEE-kwod) was tossed around.
That’s the name of the ship in Herman Melville’s Moby Dick. As a writer, Bowker had an affinity for the classic tome. Plus, the founders wanted a name that connected to the seafaring tradition and early coffee traders of the Pacific Northwest—and nothing says “old-timey sea adventures” quite like Moby Dick.
But like Cargo House, it was quickly dismissed—namely, because one of the company’s other founders couldn’t fathom anyone saying they wanted to go grab a Pequod. Touché.
So why was the name Starbucks chosen?
With deep roots in the Pacific Northwest and surrounded by the wild beauty of Washington State, the coffee shop’s co-founders ultimately wanted the name of their company to evoke a sense of adventure. It was 1971, and Seattle was really emerging as a major player in the coffee scene. The right name had to meld this adventuresome spirit with strength in the industry.
Bowker has said that Terry Heckler, whom he had done business with for years, felt that words beginning with st sounded powerful. If you think about it, he’s right: Steadfast, stalwart and stable all feel very confident and determined. And all start with st.
With that, a search of words beginning with st commenced. And, in fact, it brought the entrepreneurs right back to Moby Dick.
“Somebody somehow came up with an old mining map of the Cascades and Mount Rainier,” Bowker said in an interview with the Seattle Times. “And there was an old mining town called Starbo. As soon as I saw Starbo, I, of course, jumped to Melville’s first mate [Starbuck] in Moby Dick.”
Still, he says Moby Dick didn’t really influence Starbucks overall. It was purely coincidental that the name stuck.
Five decades later, Starbucks’s siren logo is as recognizable as McDonald’s golden arches. As for the coffee shop’s name? It’s become part of everyday vernacular—and maybe more famous than Melville’s famous character.
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Sources:
- Starbucks: “Our Name”
- The Seattle Times: “Starbucks co-founder talks about early days, launching Redhook and Seattle Weekly, too”
