Steve Jobs Didn't Like the Name 'Siri' at First

Dag Kittlaus, one of the co-founders of Siri, reveals that Steve Jobs didn't originally like the name during a speech about entrepreneurship, start-up culture, and the accelerating pace of technological advancements at Technori Pitch, reports NetworkWorld.

Kittlaus said that in Norwegian, Siri means "beautiful woman who leads you to victory".

I worked with a lady named Siri in Norway and wanted to name my daughter Siri and the domain was available. And also consumer companies need to focus on the fact that the name is easy to spell, is easy to say…


Steve Jobs wasn't sold on the name but Kittlaus kept telling him "it's a great name." Although he wanted to use something else, Jobs couldn't find a name he liked better, so he stuck with 'Siri'.

Kittlaus also revealed how Apple first showed interest in his application.

Three weeks after we launched I got a call in the office from someone at Apple that said, "Scott Forstall wants to talk to you and he's the head software guy."

And I said sure...

Only it wasn't Scott that called it was Steve. And Steve never announces where he's gonna be and what he's gonna do because there's too much commotion around it. So he said, "Dag, this is Steve Jobs."

And he wanted me to come over to his house the next day, and I did, and I spent 3 hours with him in front of his fireplace having this surreal conversation about the future.

And, you know, he talked about why Apple was going to win, and we talked about how Siri was doing. And he was very excited about the fact that.. you know, he was very interested in this area in general but, you know, they're patient, they don't jump on anything until they feel they can go after something new and he felt that we cracked it. So that was his attraction.

I ended up very lucky, timing wise. I got to work with him for a year before he got real sick. And he's pretty incredible. The stories are true. All of the stories.

Apple ended up acquiring Siri for $200 million in April of 2010. Kittlaus stayed working at Apple until this last October.

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