Actually, Mercedes was not the name of the daughter of the founder, Gottlieb Daimler, but the nickname given to the daughter of his business partner and associate, the Austrian engineeer Emil Jelinek. He convinced Daimler to call the models Mercedes with the reasoning that with such a name they will be easier to sell in southern Europe (France, Spain, Italy, etc...)
The name of the company was kept as Daimler and the names of the cars as Mercedes. When his company merged with the company of another engineer, Karl Benz, the company was called, Daimler-Benz and the models Mercedes-Benz.
As for Apple, it was an homage of the late Steve Jobs, to Alan Turing, the english mathematician, considered the father of modern computing who himself was a great fan of the Walt Disney cartoon "Snowwhite" and commited suicide 50 years ago by biting an apple he had previously injected with poison, probably following a depression due to the establishment and society pressure because of his open homosexuality. That is the reason why the apple looks bitten on one side. A sad story from a time fortunately gone away, at least in developed countries.
As for Orange or Blackberry, I guess thir are just a creature of marketing and not a tribute from one genius to another, as in the case of Jobs and Turing, or to his daughter, as in the case of Emil and Mercedes Jelinek
You are welcome, this year it was the 50th anyversary of Turing´s suicide so it was explained in many places, coinciding with Jobs´own demise.
I am glad I was helpful
The Apple logo story is an urban legend.
Interview with Rob Janoff, designer of the Apple logo
>So, I heard one of the legends being that the colored logo was an homage to [Turing]. People think I did the colored stripes because of the gay flag. And, that was something really thought for a long time. The other really cool part was that apparently he killed himself with a cyanide laced apple. And, then I found out Alan Turing's favorite childhood story was Snow White where she falls asleep forever for eating a poisoned apple to be woken up by the handsome prince. Anyway, when I explain the real reason why I did the bite it's kind of a let down. But I'll tell you. I designed it with a bite for scale, so people get that it was an apple not a cherry. Also it was kind of iconic about taking a bite out of an apple. Something that everyone can experience. It goes across cultures. If anybody ever had an apple he probably bitten into it and that's what you get. It was after I designed it, that my creative director told me: "Well you know, there is a computer term called byte". And I was like: "You're kidding!" So, it was like perfect, but it was coincidental that it was also a computer term. At the time I had to be told everything about basic computer terms.
From Wikipedia
>The logo of Apple Computer is often erroneously referred to as a tribute to Alan Turing, with the bite mark a reference to his method of suicide. Both the designer of the logo and the company deny that there is any homage to Turing in the design of the logo. Stephen Fry has recounted asking Steve Jobs whether the design was intentional, saying that Jobs' response was, "God, we wish it were."
Interesting, it teaches you a lesson about not believing all that you read in the press. Anyway, as the italians say: Si non e vero e ben travato :-)
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