- Saab – founded in 1937 in Sweden as Svenska Aeroplan aktiebolaget (Swedish Aeroplane Company); the last word is typically abbreviated as AB, hence Saab and Saab Automobile AB.
- Sabre – Semi-Automatic Business Research Environment.
- Saku Brewery – after the village in Saku Parish, Estonia, where the company was founded.
- Samsonite – named from the Biblical character Samson, renowned for his strength.
- Samsung – meaning three stars in Korean.
- Sanyo – meaning three oceans in Japanese.
- SAP – SystemAnalyse und Programmentwicklung (German for "System analysis and program development"), a company formed by five ex-IBM employees who used to work in the 'Systems/Applications/Projects' group of IBM. Later, SAP was redefined to stand for Systeme, Anwendungen und Produkte in der Datenverarbeitung (Systems, Applications and Products in Data Processing).
- SAS – Scandinavian Airlines System, the flag airline carrier of Sweden, Norway and Denmark.
- SAS Institute – originally an abbreviation for Statistical Analysis System.
- Sasol – Suid-Afrikaanse Steenkool en Olie. (Afrikaans for South African Coal and Oil).
- Saudi Aramco – the Aramco name was derived in 1944 when California Arabian Standard Oil Company (Casoc) changed its name to Arabian American Oil Company. The Saudi government purchased the company in 1980, and changed its name to Saudi Arabian Oil Company or Saudi Aramco in 1988.
- SCB – from Standard Chartered Bank. The name Standard Chartered comes from the two original banks from which it was founded – The Chartered Bank of India, Australia and China, and The Standard Bank of British South Africa.
- Schick – manufacturer of shaving razors and blades, named after the inventor Jacob Schick.
- SCO – from Santa Cruz Operation. The company's office was in Santa Cruz, California. It eventually formed Tarantella, Inc. and sold off its operating system division to Caldera Systems, which is based in Utah. Caldera Systems changed its name to Caldera International and then to The SCO Group (at which point SCO no longer stood for anything).
- SEAT – an acronym from Sociedad Española de Automóviles de Turismo (Spanish Corporation of Touring Cars).
- Sealed Air – from the "sealed air" found in its most notable product, Bubble Wrap.
- Sega – Service Games of Japan was founded by Marty Bromley (an American) to import pinball games to Japan for use on American military bases.
- Seiko – Seiko, now referred to in katakana as セイコー("seiko"), was originally named in kanji as 精工(also "seiko"). The two characters were taken from the phrase 「精巧で精密な時計の生産に成功する工場」, the company's vision which roughly translates to "a factory（工場:kojyo）that successfully（成功:seiko）produces（生産:seisan）exquisit（精巧:seiko）and precise（精密:seimitsu）watches". – According to Seiko's official company history, titled A Journey In Time: The Remarkable Story of Seiko (2003), Seiko is a Japanese word for "exquisite" or "minute" (both spelled 精巧), as well as a word for "success" (spelled 成功).
- Sennheiser – named after one of its founders, Fritz Sennheiser.
- setcom – software engineering and testing for communications, an international group of companies active in the field of wireless test solutions.
- SGI – Silicon Graphics Inc.
- Sharp – Japanese consumer electronics company named from its first product, an ever-sharp pencil.
- Shell – Royal Dutch/Shell was established in 1907, when the Royal Dutch Petrol Society Plc. and the Shell Transport and Trading Company Ltd. merged their operations. The Shell Transport and Trading Company Ltd had been established at the end of the 19th century by commercial firm Samuel & Co (founded in 1830). Samuel & Co was already importing Japanese shells when it set up an oil company, so the oil company was named after the shells.
- Siemens – founded in 1847 by Werner von Siemens and Johann Georg Halske. The company was originally called Telegraphen-Bau-Anstalt von Siemens & Halske.
- Six Apart – company co-founders Ben and Mena Trott were born six days apart in September 1977.
- Skanska – from Aktiebolaget Skånska Cementgjuteriet (Scanian Cement Casting Company)
- SKF – from Svenska Kullagerfabriken AB, a Swedish manufacturer founded in 1907. See also Volvo.
- Skoda Auto – the car company was founded in 1895 and originally named Laurin & Klement after its founders, Vaclav Laurin and Vaclav Klement. It was taken over by Škoda Works, an industrial conglomerate, in 1924, and adopted the Škoda name from Emil Škoda. Škoda Auto was split off after World War II and is now part of Volkswagen.
- Skype – the original concept for the name was Sky-Peer-to-Peer, which morphed into Skyper, then Skype.
- Smart – Swatch + Mercedes + Art
- SmartBear Software – named from "John Irving’s Hotel New Hampshire, a surreal novel in which a 'smart bear' plays an important role," according to founder Jason Cohen. In 2007, he sold to AutomatedQA, which renamed itself after its more memorable subsidiary in 2010.
- Smeg – founded by Vittorio Bertazzoni in Italy in 1948 as Smalterie Metallurgiche Emiliane Guastalla (metal enamelling factory).
- Smilebit – former Sega development studio named from what they hope to make you do (smile), and the smallest unit of computer information (bit). The company developed Jet Set Radio.
- SNK – Shin Nihon Kikaku, Japanese for Plans for a New Japan.
- Sony – from the Latin word 'sonus' meaning sound, and 'sonny' a slang word used by Americans to refer to a bright youngster, "since we were sonny boys working in sound and vision", said Akio Morita. The company was founded as Tokyo Tsoshiu Kogyo KK (Tokyo Telecommunications Engineering Corporation) in 1946, and changed its name to Sony in 1958. Sony was chosen as it could be pronounced easily in many languages.
- Sorcim – "Micros" backwards. Sorcim was the original publisher of the SuperCalc spreadsheet in 1980. It was taken over by Computer Associates.
- SPAR – originally DE SPAR, from Door Eendrachtig Samenwerken Profiteren Allen Regelmatig (Dutch, meaning "All will benefit from united co-operation"). "De spar" in Dutch translates as "the fir tree", hence the fir tree logo. As the company expanded across Europe, the name was shortened by dropping the article, "DE".
- Sperry – company founded by Elmer Ambrose Sperry (1860–1930), originally as Sperry Gyroscope Company. Sperry took over Univac, and eventually was itself taken over by Burroughs. The merged companies became Unisys, from United Information Systems.
- Spiratone – from the last name of founders Fred Spira and Hans Spira. The company was founded as Spiratone Fine Grain Laboratories. The "tone" suffix was common in the photographic industry (an example cited by Fred Spira is Royaltone) at the time of the company's founding in the 1940s.
- Sprint – from its parent company, Southern Pacific Railroad INTernal Communications. At the time, pipelines and railroad tracks were the cheapest place to lay communications lines, as the right-of-way was already leased or owned.
- SRAM Corporation – named from its founders Scott King, Stanley Ray Day, and Sam Patterson.
- SRI International – from Stanford Research Institute, established by the trustees of Stanford University, California
- Stanley Works – name created to reflect the merger of Stanley's Bolt Manufactory of New Britain, Connecticut (founded by Frederick Trent Stanley) and the Stanley Rule and Level Company (founded by his cousin Henry Stanley).
- Starbucks – named after Starbuck, a character in Herman Melville's novel Moby-Dick, also a variation of Starbo; at the time, a local mining camp north of Seattle.
- Stellent – coined from a combination of the words stellar and excellent.
- Sturm, Ruger – from its founders, Alexander McCormick Sturm and William B. Ruger.
- STX – pronounced as the word "sticks" because, when first founded, STX manufactured only lacrosse sticks
- Subaru – from the Japanese name for the constellation known to Westerners as Pleiades or the Seven Sisters. Subaru's parent company, Fuji Heavy Industries, was formed from a merger of six companies, and the constellation is featured on the company's logo.
- Sun Microsystems – its founders designed their first workstation in their dorm at Stanford University, and chose the name Stanford University Network for their product, hoping to sell it to the college. They did not.
- SuSE – from Software und System-Entwicklung (software and system development). The company was bought by Novell for its Linux distribution.
- Suzuki – from the name of its founder, Michio Suzuki.
Read more about this topic: List Of Company Name Etymologies