History IAmNotShazam / RealLife

** An episode of ''Series/{{Jeopardy}}'' asked which company made the Bold 9000 smartphone. The correct company was not "[=BlackBerry=]" as they said it was, but rather Canadian firm "Research in Motion". The company later [[http://ca.blackberry.com/company.html renamed themselves]] to "[=BlackBerry=]" on January 30, 2013.

** Similarly, Website/{{Facebook}} Inc. changed its name to Meta Platforms with Facebook one of its subsidiaries, but many people still refer to the whole company as Facebook.

** Until the 2000s, many people incorrectly referred to Creator/{{Apple}} Inc. as "[[UsefulNotes/AppleMacintosh Macintosh]]" or "Mac". A lot of people called Apple Stores "Mac Stores". This doesn't happen much nowadays as Apple's most prominent products are [=iDevices=] rather than Macs.

** Of further note are several companies that, while they did not originally share their names with their better-known brand names, have changed their names to avoid confusion. Convenience-store chain 7-Eleven's corporate presence was known as Southland Corporation until 1999, and fast food chain Jack-in-the-Box was incorporated under the name Foodmaker until the same year.

** Binney & Smith changed their name to Crayola LLC in 2007 due to their company continually being referred to as "Crayola".

** Sun Microsystems Inc. switched their Nasdaq stock symbol from SUNW to JAVA in 2007, after their popular programming language. Sun originally started out selling only hardware. The company merged with Oracle Corp. in 2010.

* The name of the first emperor of the Roman Empire is generally given as "Augustus". That's actually a title - and indeed, one granted to virtually ''all'' Roman Emperors.
** Prior to his accession as Emperor in 27 BCE, historians generally refer to UsefulNotes/{{Augustus}} as 'Octavian'. No one called him this at the time - his legal name, and the one he was actually known as, was 'Gaius Julius Caesar'. 'Octavianus' was a rarely-used fourth name only really used to distinguish him from his [[UsefulNotes/JuliusCaesar namesake uncle and adoptive father]].

** The name of Julius Caesar's great rival, UsefulNotes/{{Pompey|TheGreat}}, is generally given as Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus. As virtually all prominent Romans had three names, it is often assumed that this was his name. In fact, his name was just Gnaeus Pompeius - Pompey was from humble origins and, unlike most highborn Romans, had no third name. 'Magnus' simply meant 'the Great'.

* Strictly speaking, Big Ben is the name of the bell that strikes the hour in the Elizabeth Tower[[labelnote:*]]Renamed from the "Clock Tower" in 2012, partly to honour Queen Elizabeth Ⅱ’s sixtieth year on the throne and partly to put an end to the confusion over what the tower is called.[[/labelnote]], rather than the clock itself, or its clock tower.

* The founder of "Wendy's" was Dave Thomas. "Wendy" refers to his daughter[[note]](extra example here in that her name is actually Melinda; Wendy is her nickname)[[/note]], who was ''mentioned'' often in commercials by Thomas, but didn't actually start appearing in the commercials until 2011 - at about the same time as a [[SexSells cute red-headed twenty-something]] in braids ''also'' started to appear as "Wendy"[[note]]yet another example here in that the character's actual name is "Red", not Wendy[[/note]] in other commercials. Then there is the ''cartoon'' Wendy: the ''Literature/PippiLongstocking'' type who appears on the logo, and eventually became an animated mascot much like Ronald [=McDonald=]. Very confusing.

* "Christ" wasn't the last name of Jesus. It's the Greek-derived word for "anointed" (how you show someone is a king, prophet or [[NinjaPirateZombieRobot both]]), the Aramaic[=/=]Hebrew-sourced version being, of course "{{Messia|nicArchetype}}h". He likely didn't have one--most people at the time either didn't need one, or if they did it wasn't fixed: he'd just be "Jesus the Carpenter", "Jesus of Nazareth" or "Jesus the Preacher", depending on the circumstances. If he had one, his full name would probably have been, in Hebrew, "Jesus, Son of Joseph".

** Same for Indiana and their IU system. The one in Bloomington is the one that gets to use just IU.

* The famous cathedral in Paris is ''not'' named "Notre Dame", as people often think. Its real name is "Notre-Dame De Paris", meaning "Our Lady Of Paris". "Notre Dame" just means "Our Lady", which in this case is a title for the Virgin Mary, who is the person the cathedral is dedicated to, not the cathedral itself.

* It's a common mistake by people from outside the UK to refer to the biggest island in the British Isles as "England". In fact, the island is called Great Britain, and England is just one of the countries that make up Great Britain, the other two being Scotland and Wales. The United Kingdom, meanwhile, is also not synonymous with England, as it is sometimes incorrectly used - it's the collective name for a group of four countries, those being England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, which itself is one of two countries on the separate island of Ireland, the other being an independent country officially called "Ireland", though often referred to as the Republic of Ireland (especially when distinguishing from the North).

* The founder of "Wendy's" was Dave Thomas. "Wendy" refers to his daughter [[note]](extra example here in that her name is actually Melinda; Wendy is her nickname)[[/note]], who was ''mentioned'' often in commercials by Thomas, but didn't actually start appearing in the commercials until 2011 - at about the same time as a [[SexSells cute red-headed twenty-something]] in braids ''also'' started to appear as "Wendy" [[note]]yet another example here in that the character's actual name is "Red", not Wendy[[/note]] in other commercials. Then there is the ''cartoon'' Wendy: the ''Literature/PippiLongstocking'' type who appears on the logo, and eventually became an animated mascot much like Ronald [=McDonald=]. Very confusing.

* There is no one country named Korea. There are two separate countries, officially named the Democratic People's Republic of Korea and the Republic of Korea, though more often colloquially referred to as North Korea and South Korea respectively. North Korea ''never'' refers to itself by that name, as the government consider itself the sole legitimate government of the Korean Peninsula.

* During the Second World War, American soldiers came across railroad stations with a large sign stating simply, "HALT", and mistook this for the name of the town. In reality, "halt" in German means "stop", and the signs were put there so that people would not attempt to trespass[[note]]It also means "stop" in English, so how the soldiers made this mistake is unknown.[[/note]]. By the end of the war, there were several instances of towns named Halt across the country.

* Olympus Mons is the name of Mars's largest volcano, not the name of the red spot on Jupiter, which is simply known as the "Great Red Spot". The Great Red Spot isn't a volcano as Jupiter is a gas giant; it's a storm that has raged on the planet for centuries.

** This has caused some problems for real world Biblical historians when people bring up Tacitus as "proof" that Jesus really existed. In his book, "The Annals", Tacitus mentions "a certain man named Christus." Christus, unlike "Christ", was, in fact, a name used in the Holy Land during the appropriate time... but it has nothing to do with Jesus despite what some people claim.

* This is sort of how the state of Texas got its name. It's an Anglicisation of the Spanish name "Tejas", which itself is derived from the Caddo word táyshaʼ, meaning friend. The Spanish colonisers referred to the Caddo people living there as "Tejas", as in "friends", and referred to the land as "provincia de los Tejas" or "provincia de Texas". Over time, people mistook this to mean "providence of Texas", and the state acquired its final name.

* There is no one country named Korea. There are two separate countries, officially named Republic of Korea and Democratic People's Republic of Korea, though more often colloquially referred to as North Korea and South Korea respectively. North Korea ''never'' refers to itself by that name, as the government consider itself the sole legitimate government of the Korean Peninsula.

* June 20 or 21 and December 21 or 22 are often known as the summer and winter solstices, respectively, when the Northern Hemisphere is tilted the closest or furthest from the sun. Meanwhile, March 20 and September 22 or 23 are the spring and fall equinoxes, respectively, when the Earth is titled the least. [[note]](All of these are reversed in the Southern Hemisphere.)[[/note]] Solstices and equinoxes specifically refer to the brief moment when the Earth is most or least tilted, not the entire day.

* June 20 or 21 and December 21 or 22 are often known as the summer and winter solstices, respectively, when the Northern Hemisphere is tilted the closest or furthest from the sun. Meanwhile, March 20 and September 22 or 23 are the spring and fall equinoxes, respectively, when the Earth is either titled the least. [[note]](All of these are reversed in the Southern Hemisphere.)[[/note]] Solstices and equinoxes specifically refer to the brief moment when the Earth is most or least tilted, not the entire day.

* June 20 or 21 and December 21 or 22 are often known as the summer and winter solstices, respectively, when the Northern Hemisphere is tilted the closest or furthest from the sun. Meanwhile, March 20 and September 22 or 23 are the spring and fall equinoxes, respectively, when the Earth is either titled the least. [[note]](All of these are reversed in the Southern Hemisphere.)[[/note]] Solstice and equinoxes specifically refer to the brief moment when the Earth is most or least tilted, not the entire day.

* June 20 or 21 and December 21 or 22 are often known as the summer and winter solstices, respectively, when the Northern Hemisphere is tilted the closest or furthest from the sun. Meanwhile, March 20 and September 22 or 23 are the spring and fall equinoxes, respectively, when the Earth is either titled the least. [[note]](All of these are reversed in the Southern Hemisphere.)[[/note]] Solstice and equinoxes specifically refer to the brief moment when the earth is most or least tilted, not the entire day.

* There is no one country named Korea. There are two separate countries, officially named Republic of Korea and Democratic People's Republic of Korea, though more often colloquially referred to as North Korea and South Korea respectively.

* It's a common mistake by people from outside the UK to refer to the biggest island in the British Isles as "England". In fact, the island is called Great Britain, and England is just one of the countries that make up Great Britain, the other two being Scotland and Wales. The United Kingdom, meanwhile, is also not synonymous with England, as it is sometimes incorrectly used - it's the collective name for a group of four countries, those being England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, which itself is one of two countries on the separate island of Ireland, the other being an independent country officially called Ireland, though often referred to as the Republic of Ireland (especially when distinguishing from the North).

* It's a common mistake by people from outside the UK to refer to the biggest island in the British Isles as "England". In fact, the island is called Great Britain, and England is just one of the countries that make up Great Britain, the other two being Scotland and Wales. The United Kingdom, meanwhile, is also not synonymous with England, as it is sometimes incorrectly used - it's the collective name for a group of four countries, those being England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, which itself is one of two countries on the separate island of Ireland, the other being an independent country officially called the Republic of Ireland, though often simply called Ireland for short.