In 1971, three men in Seattle decided to open a coffee bean store. Gordon Bowker was a writer. Jerry Baldwin was an English teacher. Zev Siegl was a history teacher. None of them had any particular background in business. What they had was a love of good coffee — and a copy of Moby Dick.
They needed a name. The original idea, suggested by Bowker, was "Cargo House" — a direct nod to the maritime history of Seattle's waterfront, where trade goods arrived from around the world. Then someone proposed "Pequod," the name of Captain Ahab's doomed whaling ship in Herman Melville's 1851 novel. It was nautical, literary, and connected to the sea-trade associations they wanted for the brand.
The Pequod idea faded. Heckler, who had been brought in to help with the visual identity, suggested going back to the novel for inspiration. He was looking through an old mining map of Mount Rainier when he noticed a small mining town marked on it: Starbo. Something clicked. Heckler connected Starbo to Starbuck — the first mate aboard the Pequod, a calm, principled Nantucket whaleman who served as a counterpoint to Ahab's obsession.
Why Starbuck Specifically?
First Mate Starbuck is one of the novel's most complex characters. Where Ahab is consumed, Starbuck is measured. Where Ahab sees only the white whale, Starbuck maintains perspective. In a book about hubris and ruin, Starbuck represents steady competence — the professional who does the work while the captain pursues his fixation.
Whether the founders had this depth of literary analysis in mind is debatable. What mattered practically was that the name evoked the sea, sounded distinctive, and had no obvious competitors in the coffee space. Starbucks — the coffee of the steady, competent sailor. It was better than Pequod. It was much better than Cargo House.
The name was pluralized to "Starbucks" for reasons lost in the various accounts. Some say it sounded better with the 's'. Others say it was to avoid sounding like a single person's name. The founding documents show the original partnership was simply called "Starbucks Coffee, Tea and Spice" — a retail shop selling whole coffee beans, not prepared drinks.
The Logo That Started With a Topless Mermaid
If the name came from a whaling novel, the logo went further — straight into maritime mythology. Heckler found a 16th-century Norse woodcut of a twin-tailed siren (a Rusalka — a Slavic variant of the mermaid myth) and proposed it as the logo. The original design showed the siren from the waist up, bare-chested, her two fish tails spread wide on either side.
The image was provocative for a retail shop in 1971, but the founders used it. As the company grew, the logo went through progressive revisions that gradually obscured the more explicit elements — the navel disappeared, the tails were pulled in, the image was cropped tighter. The 1992 redesign, made as the company prepared for its IPO, brought the siren's image closer in and cropped the tails almost entirely. The 2011 redesign removed the wordmark entirely, leaving just the siren — confident enough in brand recognition to let the image stand alone.
The current Starbucks siren — a crowned woman with flowing hair and two curved fish tails visible at the edges — is a direct descendant of that 16th-century Norse woodcut, revised through five decades and multiple rounds of legal and aesthetic refinement into one of the most recognizable brand images on earth.
Howard Schultz Didn't Found Starbucks
This surprises many people. Howard Schultz, the name most associated with Starbucks' global expansion, joined the company in 1982 — eleven years after its founding — as Director of Retail Operations and Marketing. He visited Milan in 1983, was captivated by Italian espresso bars, and came back convinced that Starbucks should sell prepared drinks, not just beans. The original founders disagreed. They sold coffee beans. Prepared drinks were a different business.
Schultz left and started his own coffee shop, Il Giornale, in 1986. Two years later, the three original founders decided to sell Starbucks. Schultz bought the company for $3.8 million, merged it with Il Giornale, and kept the Starbucks name. The original founders walked away. The rest is the story everyone knows: 36,000+ locations, 35 million customers per week, a name taken from a character in a 175-year-old novel about a whale.
Trademark Note
Starbucks Corporation holds U.S. trademark registrations for both the "Starbucks" name and the siren logo across multiple international classes, including Class 30 (coffee, tea) and Class 43 (restaurant and café services). The siren design mark has been updated through successive registrations as the logo evolved. The green color used in the logo — while not a federally registered color trademark on its own — is protected as part of the trade dress of the overall brand identity. The company actively enforces its marks globally, particularly against businesses using siren imagery in coffee contexts.
Frequently Asked Questions
Where does the name Starbucks come from?
From Starbuck, the first mate of the Pequod in Moby-Dick. Co-founder Gordon Bowker's circle considered the ship's own name first, but 'Pequod' lost (the 'pee' sound doomed it) and the mate's name — with its crisp 'st' start — won.
What is the Starbucks siren logo?
A twin-tailed mermaid from a Norse-style woodcut, chosen to evoke the seafaring coffee trade of old Seattle. The logo has been simplified repeatedly — by 2011 the wordmark was dropped entirely, leaving the siren alone, a confidence move only globally recognized marks can afford.
Can you trademark a name from classic literature?
Yes — names from public domain works are free to adopt, and used arbitrarily for coffee shops, 'Starbucks' was distinctive from day one. The literature connection adds story without adding legal weakness, since Melville's text grants no one exclusive naming rights.
Why did Starbucks drop its name from the logo?
Wordless logos cross languages without translation, and the company was expanding into markets with non-Latin scripts. Legally it works only because the siren had been registered and promoted as a standalone mark for decades — brands must build that recognition before shedding the name.