The biggest name in sportswear was almost Dimension Six. Nike's founders had other options on the table, and the winner came late.
The company started in 1964 as Blue Ribbon Sports. Phil Knight and his former University of Oregon coach, Bill Bowerman, founded it to import running shoes from the Japanese maker Onitsuka. By 1971 the partnership with Onitsuka was falling apart, and it ended in 1972. Blue Ribbon needed a brand of its own, and fast.
According to Knight's memoir Shoe Dog, as summarized by one reader, the leading candidates were Falcon and Dimension Six. Then Jeff Johnson, Blue Ribbon's first full-time employee, came in with Nike. In the memoir's telling, the name came to him in a dream. Knight took it at the last minute, on impulse.
Johnson's source was Greek mythology. Nike was the goddess of victory, and her name is the ordinary Greek word for "victory" or the upper hand in a contest. Hesiod's Theogony makes her a daughter of the Titan Pallas and the river Styx. Her siblings are personifications too: Zelus (rivalry), Kratos (strength) and Bia (force). The Romans called her Victoria.
She was usually shown with wings, moving at speed. The Winged Victory of Samothrace, a Hellenistic statue, shows her landing on a warship's prow. Athens had a temple to Athena Nike on the Acropolis. For a company selling running shoes, a fast, winged figure of winning was hard to beat.
The logo arrived the same year. Carolyn Davidson, a graphic design student at Portland State University, drew the Swoosh in 1971 for a fee of $35. Knight's reaction was lukewarm: "I don't love it, but it will grow on me." Nike first used it on June 18, 1971. In 1983 Knight gave Davidson a gold ring bearing the Swoosh and 500 shares of Nike stock.
The name has since outgrown its source. Since 1995 the Swoosh has often appeared without the word at all. The goddess is still in there, even when the name is left off.