eBay or echobay

Omidyar had formed a sole proprietorship for his web consulting and freelance technology work, which he had named Echo Bay Technology Group. The name was not a reference to Echo Bay, Nevada, the wilderness area near Lake Mead, or to any other real-world Echo Bay. "It just sounded cool," he says. When he tried to register EchoBay.com, however, he found he was a few months too late. Echo Bay Mines, a Canadian company that mined for gold in Nevada, had gotten to it first, and was using echobay.com for its corporate home page. Omidyar registered what he considered to be the next best thing: eBay.com.
who knew?