As far as I know, Exxon was the first company whose executives realized that they lacked the necessary creativity to think of a good name, and so turned the process over to a computer. They gave the computer a few simple conditions.
- It had to be two syllables.
- It had to have a double consonant.
- It had to start with an E and have an O in the second syllable. (These preceding conditions were to keep it sounding like Esso, which did not meet the some of the following conditions, thus necessitating the search for a new name.
- It had to be an unused name throughout the entire world.
- It had to not mean anything in a foreign language
- And probably a few more that I can't think of.
So we can hardly blame the executives for handing this task over to a computer, which by the way could not come up with any name besides Exxon. This conveniently saved the executives from themselves by circumventing any long, painful, Dilbertesque name selection process.
Note: Having searched the web and ExxonMobil's web site, I have only been able to find anecdotal sources. There are a good number of these, plus I heard the story from an ExxonMobil executive, so I am relatively confident of its truth. However, anecdotal details differ from account to account, so mine may not be completely correct.