Intel’s first choice of name, said aloud, meant “more noise.”
In 1968 Gordon Moore and Robert Noyce first considered “Moore Noyce,” then heard it as “more noise” — a cursed label for an electronics firm. They landed on Intel, short for Integrated Electronics. A Midwest hotel chain, Intelco, already owned the trademark. Moore and Noyce paid it $15,000 for the rights, which Moore called “easier than thinking up another alternative.”
Intel on Brandseum