Why do so many American companies’ names start with “General” (e.g. General Electric, General Motors, General Mills)?
In: Economics
yo that’s funny i always wondered that too. it’s like they were trying to sound all fancy and important or somthing. maybe it’s a cult of general stuff
A lot of them were formed from several companies merging, so “general” to mean a broad business in lots of markets.
It was common in the late 1800s and early 1900 when there were mergers to create a holding company general and the field.
To quote the Wikipedia article of the history of general motors.
>General Motors was capitalized by William C. Durant on September 16, 1908, as a holding company. The next day it purchased Buick Motor Company, and rapidly acquired more than twenty companies including Oldsmobile, Cadillac, Oakland Motor Car Company, and McLaughlin of Canada.
The same for General mills
>General Mills itself was created on June 20, 1928,[8] when Washburn-Crosby President James Ford Bell merged Washburn-Crosby with three other mills.
And general Electric
>
1890 Four companies (Edison Lamp Company, Edison Machine Works, and Bergmann & Company with the patent-holding company, Edison Electric Light Company) in various Tri-state area locations holding Edison’s various interests merge as Edison General Electric Company
The naming scheme was used later too because it was associated with large companies General Dynamics for example was the Electric Boat Company. The name is from making submarines with electric engines in 1899. In 1952 after acquisitions was airplane manufacturing, the name was chage to General Dynamics.
Typical company names change with time. Look at the companies that start as companies that offer services on the internet and you see trends in names. Short single-word names are a common
Names used to be a bit more literal, so general was truly to communicate the type of business they were. A general corporation. The easiest way to understand the name is if you look to the service:
General hospital, oh good I can go there for almost any ailment
General mill, oh good I can bring all types of my grain and they can handle it
General Electric, who knows?
I don’t know if this expanded into greater meaning, for example how many companies’ names share common similarities now but lack actual meaning:
Advanced
Specialty
Premier
Royal
i guess they just really liked the word general huh. maybe it was a big thing back in the day like everyone wanted to be ‘general’ in somethin. real solid names tho
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