Why is the coffee company Starbucks called Starbucks?
Starbuck was a character in the novel Moby Dick. He did not like coffee, as some people suggested – the connection is a little bit more obscure than that. Moby Dick was based on the real-life story of Mocha Dick, a white sperm whale encountered near Mocha Island, Chile, in the early 1800s. Mocha is, of course, a variety of coffee bean, although this name is actually derived from the port city of Mocha in Yemen, rather than Mocha Island. Mocha, Yemen, is famous for being the world’s primary marketplace for coffee from the 15th century until the 17th century. So that’s the connection between Moby Dick and coffee. As others have pointed out, Starbuck’s name was chosen because Pequod – the name of the ship in Moby Dick – was rejected.
