How Starbucks got its name
Almost everyone know that Starbucks has become synonymous to coffee, but have you ever wondered how it got its name? This really interesting guest post below from one of our official Yahoo! Answers contributors, Chad Upton (editor-in-chief of Broken Secrets), answers this question.
**Secret Revealed**
In 1971, an English teacher, a history teacher and writer started a coffee roasting business in Seattle.
It’s not surprising that such an intellectual group would have an affinity for classics like Moby Dick. In fact, Starbucks was nearly called Pequod, the name of the whaling ship in Moby Dick. Thankfully, one of the partners rejected the name. Instead, they went with Starbucks, the name of Pequod’s first mate.
Although Starbuck was a fictional young quaker from Nantucket, there were a number of real sailors from that era with the name “Starbuck.”. Naming a coffee company was’t the first time the name was borrowed either. There is an island in the South Pacific, a popular region for whaling, called Starbuck Island.
Starbuck Island was heavily mined for phosphate in the late 1800s and many ships were wrecked there. The high frequency of shipwrecks was probably caused by the reefs that surrounded the island, but there is a mythical explanation too.
In Greek Mythology there are seductresses who lure sailors to shipwreck on the coast of their islands. These mythical creatures are called Sirens and the Starbucks logo contains one.
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Starbucks in amazing. It has agreed to a partnership with Apple to collaborate on selling music as part of the “coffeehouse experience”. Apple added a Starbucks Entertainment area to the iTunes Store, selling music similar to that played in Starbucks stores.