Yup, it appears that the ubiquitous Starbucks is rethinking what to call a few of its new stores. Recession, tastes, anti establishment, McDonald's McCafe, are perhaps a few of the reasons cited to explain the rationale behind this maneuver.

So it got me thinking.

How many name changes have occurred that actually changed the product, or the public's perception of the product?

So, I did a little research to see who had changed their name. You can make your own calls as to whether this altered your sensibilities. I might just give an editorial comment or two…

We've got Anderson Consulting that changed its name to Accenture. Turns out this was a fortuitous manuever after Anderson's accounting scandals.

Cosmair became L'Oreal. It did? Why?

Google, believe it or not, was called Backrub…go figure

Healthy Choice was called Diet Deluxe. A masterful name change, don't you think?

Jerry's Guide to the World WIde Web is now Yahoo. Which, purportedly is an acronym for "Yet Another
Hierarchical Officious Oracle".

Prince, who I am sure had yet another name (which I don't know) became a symbol (which I also don't know.)

You could also be a child of George Forman, have many siblings, all of which are called George, which makes it really easy to not get into trouble by blaming one of the other Georges.

I think I will wait and see what happens to the newly named Starbucks, rue the day I didn't buy into the heretofore Backrub now Google offering and be content that I know that a (whatever) by any other name (whatever) is still a (whatever) as long as it has lots of advertising dollars to spend to support it.