Google is undoubtedly one of the most successful brands ever. Its name has even become a recognized verb.

The ubiquitous search giant, however, could owe its success to a typo, according to David Koller at Stanford University, where Google was born.

In 1997, Larry Page and Sean Anderson sat around a table at Stanford brainstorming names for a massive data-index website with some other graduate students. Anderson suggested "googolplex," one of the largest describable numbers. Page shortened the word to "googol."

Anderson immediately went to check the availability of the domain, but when he typed the name online, he allegedly made a few mistakes, keying in "google" instead.

Fond of the name, Page immediately registered the site for himself and Sergey Brin. The domain name registration record puts its creation on Sept. 15, 1997.

The rest is history.

h/t Gawker