How do you pronounce the word ‘Nvidia’? Here’s how to say the name of a $3 trillion company
Most of the world’s top companies have simple names. Steve Jobs named Apple while eating fruit, and he found the name “sweet, airy and not scary.” Also, it came before Atari in the phone book. Microsoft is a combination of the words “microcomputer” and “software,” while Walmart is a combination of the last name of the supermarket’s founder, Sam Walton, and “mart.”
Nvidia—which briefly held the title of the world’s most valuable company this past week—challenges these simple branding conventions. A name full of consonants and a creepy, 1990s-esque op-art logo recalls its underdog, early roots rather than its current reality: the behemoth cornering the market for AI chips.
Despite its rarity, Nvidia’s prominence warrants discussion, and discussion needs to be vocal. So, what is the correct way to call Nvidia?
According to its website, Nvidia is pronounced “en-VID-eeyah,” not NUH-vid-eeyah, as many have pronounced it.
Where does the word ‘Nvidia’ come from?
When Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang started the company with his friends Chris Malachowsky and Curtis Priem in 1993, they hashed out almost every detail of their new venture, except for the name. Sitting in a Palo Alto Denny’s—a place chosen for its cheap coffee and Huang’s experience working there in his youth—the three founders revealed the title of their work.
So, as they continue to build, they simply name their files “NV” in the next version, Huang said earlier. Good luck. When it came time to incorporate the company, the three were forced to find a name. At first, they chose NVision, until they learned that the toilet paper maker had already taken the name.
After going back to the drawing board, the founders wrote all the words with “NV” in them, until Huang suggested Nvidia, against the Latin word. invidia, which means “jealousy.”
The name worked because the trio hoped to design a graphics chip so powerful that it would rival, as Priem previously stated. The New Yorker, “green with envy.”
The first ‘Nvidia‘
The first “Nvidia” was Invidia, the Roman goddess of envy. His heart was “green with gall,” his tongue dripped with poison, “he had a white spot on his face, his whole body was pale, his eyes were dim in everything,” as the Roman poet Ovid described him in the book: The Metamorphosis.
Corporate marketing rarely comes from Roman mythology, much less from a misfit. And yet, the motif of envy seems to permeate all of the company’s products. The eighth generation of its graphics processing units had the slogan “green with envy.”
Nvidia’s logo, a green, rotating eye, may have drawn inspiration from the original Invidia. His body was associated with a piercing gaze, an “evil eye” that cursed those who envied him. People of many religions still wear “evil eye” amulets, or recite prayers by heart to ward off a curse.
Many companies now have reason to be jealous of Nvidia. With a market cap of $3.1 trillion, unprecedented market focus and seemingly limitless growth, Nvidia’s success is what every CEO dreams of.
Huang may have noticed this, and deliberately placed jealousy as a reminder of his rivals beating him. In accordance with I New Yorker, years Huang opened every staff meeting with these words, “our company has 30 days from going out of business.”
Apparently, even after all the success, this name remains an unofficial company slogan.
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