Aldi has become a firm favourite among shoppers in the UK, with more than 1,000 stores across the land and counting. What started as a cheap-and-cheerful pile-it-high store that sold some weird and wonderful items has now become the first choice for many people when it comes to the weekly shop.
But it's unlikely many have stopped to wonder what the name actually stands for. One person has asked the question, though.
Aldi was started in Germany back in 1946 by the Albrecht family. It later split into two, Aldi Nord and Aldi Sud.
Taking to online question and answer site Quora, one person simply asked: "What does Aldi stand for?" According to Aldi's website, the brothers changed their business name to Aldi - short for Albrecht and Discount in the 1960s as they expanded across Germany, reports the Mirror US. While it's not clear why they shortened the brand name, a statement confirms: "Aldi is a chain of supermarkets."
It continues: "It was founded by Anna Albrecht and her sons Karl and Theo, who expanded a small store into a chain of self-service, great-value stores where people could pay for goods on account. As their business expanded across Germany, they settled on the name Aldi, short for Albrecht and Discount. Today, you'll find our grocery stores all over the world."
One language enthusiast on Quora provided a possible reason as to why the store is called Aldi, saying: "In origin, it's apparently short for 'Albrecht Discounter' or something along those lines, where "Albrecht" is the family name of the founders and "Discounter" is a kind of low-cost supermarket. Nowadays though only the abbreviation remains, so it's not really short for anything anymore."
They went on to say: "This pattern of abbreviation is quite common in German. Another well-known example is 'Adidas', which comes from the name of the founder, Adolf Dassler ('Adi' being a familiar form of 'Adolf')." On the topic of why some shoppers say 'Aldi's' instead of 'Aldi,' one person, referring to the USA, said: "This is very common in the Midwest and Midsouth (northern part of the South)."
They continued: "It seems to me that because a lot of store names have or had an "s" at the end like Woolworths, Albertson's, Gimbel's, Macys, Sears, Neisner's, Dominick's, Pete's Market, McKenzie's, Walgreens, CVS, etc. that people figure other stores have an "s". So I hear Piggly Wiggly's, Jewel's, Kroger's, JCPenney's and of course Aldi's. Since Aldi has locations in the South, Midwest and Northeast I am assuming that is where you are located, so you will notice people add an "s" to other store names too."
