- Google. The word in this exact form was originated by Google, the company that makes the search engine Google; but I presume that the name is an alteration of the word googol, which is used for the very large number 1 followed by 100 zeroes. The origin of the word googol is, according to the story, that it was uttered by Edward Sirotta, the nephew of the mathematician Edward Kasner.
- Yahoo. In Johnathan Swift's novel Gulliver's Travels, Gulliver's fourth voyage takes him to a land where there is a "race of filthy, loathsome brutes" [Benet's Reader's Encyclopedia], called the Yahoos, who resemble human beings. The intelligent and admirable race in that land are the Houyhnhnms, who resemble horses. The Houyhnhnms have tamed the Yahoos, who Swift intended to represent his rather cynical view of the human race.
- Bluetooth. This was an epithet of several Scandinavian or Viking kings or chieftains, and especially Harald Bluetooth, who was a 10th-century king of Norway and Denmark. Some of the high-ranking Vikings did indeed have blue teeth, due to the painful custom of putting colored inserts into the teeth, for decoration, to look formidable, and to show bravery in the face of this painful procedure. According to Wikipedia, "the Bluetooth logo consists of the Nordic runes for his initials. . . ."
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