How did Red Bull get its name?

The animal on a can of Red Bull is not exactly a bull. It is a gaur, and the name is a translation that rounds it off.

The drink began in Thailand as Krating Daeng. Chaleo Yoovidhya, the son of poor Chinese immigrants, founded T.C. Pharmaceutical Industries. The South China Morning Post dates the firm to 1956, though Wikipedia says the early 1960s. The Post says he reworked a Japanese tonic, Lipovitan D, into a sweeter drink for Thai tastes. He launched it in 1976.

Krathing is the Thai word for the gaur, a huge wild bovine. Daeng means red. Together the name means "red gaur." The Thailand Lexicon notes that the label shows two red gaurs charging at each other, a picture of power. The South China Morning Post says the clash echoes the bull fights popular in rural Thailand. Behind them sits a yellow sun.

Krating Daeng came in medicine bottles, the South China Morning Post says, and Wikipedia says it was aimed at rural laborers. The Post adds that its ads still target taxi, tuk-tuk, truck and bus drivers.

Then an Austrian marketer arrived. Dietrich Mateschitz was selling toothpaste for the German company Blendax. On a trip to Thailand he found that Krating Daeng cured his jet lag. Wikipedia dates the trip to 1982, while the South China Morning Post places the jet-lag moment in 1984. Wikipedia dates the partnership to 1984. Mateschitz and Chaleo each took 49 percent of Red Bull GmbH, and Chaleo's son Chalerm took the other 2 percent.

For Western buyers, Mateschitz carbonated the drink, put it in silver-and-blue aluminium cans and translated the name. Red Bull launched in Austria on 1 April 1987, with the slogan "Red Bull gives you wings."

The English word gaur is itself borrowed. Merriam-Webster traces it through Hindi to the Sanskrit gaura, related to go, "cow" or "bull," and dates it in English to 1806.