The Origin of "Pringles"

I had coffee and conversation with a friend at Panera in Finneytown this week. Finneytown is one of the north-of-Cincinnati residential areas that I have passed through frequently on the bus or in the car as we go into downtown Cincinnati by way of Winton Road.  Though I have thousands of hours of commuting time in all sorts of weather and road conditions under my belt, those days are past, and I am no longer an adventurous driver. Nevertheless I felt perfectly comfortable driving there by myself in the middle of a sunny afternoon, and I arrived early, as I usually do, since I don't really believe that you can get "everywhere" in Cincinnati in about a half hour, and always allow more time. I am wrong more often than I am right--it almost always takes less time than I allow.

We were in my friend's neighborhood, and after we talked, I offered to drive her home. I was watching carefully where I was going, so I could get back again, and after we made a couple turns I noticed the sign for Pringle Drive, though that was not where we were headed. Then she remarked casually that Pringles were named after this road! Oh, that's where the inventor lived? I asked. No, but the product manager at P&G who was working on their potato chip product back in the '60s happened to live in this general area, before the new product with the innovative shape and container was named. He and a colleague or two car-pooled, and as he passed one day he noticed the name of the street and thought it was catchy. Neither he nor any other Pringles associate actually lived on Pringle Drive, but the street is forever enshrined because its name caught his eye and his imagination.

Pringles, which I have seen in numerous countries throughout the world, is one of the hundreds of consumer brands that I recognized as a Procter & Gamble (P&G) product even before I came to Cincinnati. But it turns out that my recognition is outdated. Since I moved here and read The Enquirer I have been aware that P&G is downsizing, selling off tons of its brands. They sold Pringles in 2012 and it is now owned by Kellogg.

The Wikipedia article about Pringles gives a good history of the "potato snack," as it is now called, and speculates--but without this exact story--about its name. I like this one.