How Nikon got its name

ohh… that makes sense now. It says Nippon Kogaku on the top of my Nikon SP

Nice, but what about D800?!?

Rumours are pretty slow, eh?

So… seems to be nearest a NIKON D800…

I’m guessing it will be Nikkor D4/D800. :p

Najpon Conegaku?!

For the birds…

Okay, Japanese Kogaku, now bring us D800.

Didn’t it come from Nippon and Con ? Ni-Con but due to pronunciation issues they changed it Nikon.

Wow. I’m surprised no one got this right. It’s more of a play-on-words than “shortened.” NIKON comes from NIPPON KOGAKU and IKON but it doesn’t involve any German brands merging in any way, or anything like that.

Nippon Kogaku was formed in 1917 as a merge between two Japanese optical companies. In 1934, the name Nikkor was born to identify its lenses. They primarily manufactured glass elements for industrial use, mostly with the Japanese Army. Once that, erm, ended…they came out with a camera system that many of you know as the S-mount rangefinders. The first of which, was the NIKON 1. The NIKON was their first camera. From there, it was just updates…NIKON M, NIKON S, NIKON S2, NIKON S3, NIKON SP, NIKON S4…until we get to the NIKON F and we see a second line of cameras, as well as a NIKKOREX F! Which I don’t think was introduced until the early 60′s, I know the SP and F were manufactured at the same time but I believe that the SP had been stopped by the time Nippon Kogaku chose to focus their efforts on the F-mount line. The “Nippon Kogaku” logo disappeared from Nikon F cameras in the early 70′s…however, they kept the name NIPPON KOGAKU all the way until 1988 when they finally changed it to NIKON CORPORATION!

There ya go. That’s the truth.

Nycon with Nick-or lenses.

This was on a forum in DP Review on April 1 a year or two ago:

Nikon used the Kiritsu concept to get started as it wasn’t (and probably in legal terms like a lot of companies) is actually a collection of organizations.

In 1903, Damare Konoyarou, and optics grinder (everything was ground back then, not cast) from Ketsunoana emigrated to Tokyo and set up the factory that was soon to become the core of the company we know and love to-day. Obviously, the Russo-Japanese war kind of disrupted things, but from small acorns to mighty oaks grow.
Over the years, the firm began making optics for a variety of purposes from industry to medicine, and during Second World War, developed several optical sights including the famous Panopticon helmet, where soldiers could use a reflecting series of mirrors and prisms built into their helmets to give them 360 degrees of view to prevent the enemy from sneaking up on them. Unfortunately this six-foot high, 172-lb device had operational issues and was never deployed successfully.

Post-War, the company focused more on optics but retained its R&D focus by developing the first autodeveloping-like systems in the 1950s that proved an inspiration to the Polaroid system. The Knee-Can project saw film from SLRs of that era fed from the camera in a lengthy strip from a bulk loader into a collection of development tanks strapped to the lower legs. Mechanical power to operate the system was collected in a fly-wheel as the photographer walked.
A major issue with the Knee-Can system was that the fly-wheel acted as a gyroscope.
This contributed to a horrific incident on April 28, 1952 when the American occupation ended and home-rule resumed in Japan.

Introduction of the Knee-Can system
Kenta ‘Kin Tama’ Nogomo (Kin Tama literally means Golden Balls, a nick-name that refers to a war injury), was running to get into position at the ceremony, when the fly-wheel began to spin so fast that he was unable to move except along a horizontal plane.

Given that the photographers were being requested to move into a specific spot so that the dignitaries could could continue with the ceremony, Nogomo found himself struggling like a man under water. Military Police on hand thought the man was either being unco-operative or having a fit and as the spinning apparatus and piped watercan system chugged away. They began for push him along but the hundreds of pounds of torque began to overcome Nogomo. He was flung about the room as in a spastic whirligig that many of the attendees thought was an interpretive dance showcasing the fusion of Japanese industrial resurgence and traditional values.

This event was captured on film and ballet students still use some of the footwork in entrance auditions for the prestigious Baka Yaroo Academy.

the explanation suggested above may be anywhere from benign to bizarre. nippon kogaku, when contracted from left to right, might yield nikku, or nippoku, but dropping one letter from the second word into the first would seem rather arbitrary. it’s been speculated that the arrangement of letters may have had some “other” purpose.

one competing explanation, is that in 1959, the year nippon kogaku changed it’s name to Nikon — the Zeiss Ikon brand dominated the prestige camera category. the conjecture was Nikon, was nippon’s ikon. this clever contraction would immediately help the company piggyback atop the ikon’s fame.

which explanation, if any, is the authentic answer — no one knows for sure as it can’t be independently verified. however zeiss, at the time, was pretty upset about this development.