Audi

Audi, the German motor car manufacturing company, takes its name from the Latin verb audire (‘to ‘listen’, ‘to hear’): audi is the singular imperative form of the verb.

In 1909 August Horch, Audi’s founder, left the company he had established some five years earlier and had named after himself August Horch & Cie, and decided with two friends and business partners, the brothers Paul and Franz Fikentscher, to found a new company. He was unable to name this company Horch since that was already the name of the company he had founded earlier and the re-use of the name would have involved trademark infringement. When he met with the Fikentscher brothers to decide on a new name, also in the room with them was Franz Fikentscher’s young son, sitting in the corner studying a Latin text, and it was he who interrupted the adults’ discussion to suggest that the new company take the name Audi, the singular imperative of the Latin verb audire and an exact translation of the surname Horch, which is the singular imperative form of the German verb horchen (‘to listen’).