What Does "Motorola" Even Mean?

[deluxestogie]

Due to a brain fart, I wondered this morning where the name Motorola came from. [I had ordered a battery for my Motorola dumbphone last night, and noticed the receipt in my inbox this morning.] The curiosity led me down a rabbit hole.

Paul Galvin wanted a brand name for Galvin Manufacturing Corporation's new car radio, and created the name “Motorola” by linking "motor" (for motorcar) with "ola" (from Victrola)...

Okay, a motorcar Victrola.

Victrola: 1905, trademark of a phonograph, from Victor Talking Machine Co. According to a contemporary letter from company head Eldridge R. Johnson, coined because it had "a sound suggestive of music," with ending from pianola.

Hmm...

Pianola: 1896, trademark name (1901) of a player piano, from piano, the ending perhaps abstracted from viola and meant as a diminutive suffix. The pianola's popularity led to a rash of product names ending in -ola, especially Victrola (q.v.), and slang words such as payola.

Wow! Motorola is a car radio, the child of a phonograph, the grandchild of a player piano, and the great grandchild of the diminutive (actually the oversize) of violin! [During most of the 19th century, "car" (shorthand for "carriage") was a passive thing, towed by a horse or a locomotive. When a stand-alone motor was added to a carriage, it was named a motorcar. You will have to track down on your own where the word, "radio", came from.]

Bob

 

[fimbrew]

So a Motorola is a motorized viola?

 

[deluxestogie]

A motorized viola with vacuum tubes.

Bob

 

[leverhead]

Don't forget the 'A' and 'B' batteries.

 

[deluxestogie]