Adidas
Adi Dassler pretty much invented the modern sports shoe. As a 20 year-old track enthusiast in Germany, Dassler made his first shoe, a canvas training shoe for runners, in 1920. Over the next two decades, Dassler expanded his line, and by 1937 was producing 30 models of shoes for eleven different sports. Early on, Dassler made a point of soliciting the opinions of the athletes themselves and being personally present at the sporting events in which competitors wore his shoes.
After the interruption of World War II, Dassler restarted his company and decided to register the trademark “Adidas,” a melding of the first syllables of his own first and last names. In 1949, he registered the company’s famous three-stripes design as a trademark. By the 1960s, Adidas dominated the professional sports shoe market and began manufacturing athletic equipment and Adidas logo clothing as well.
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I was under the impression that the fellow’s name was Adolph Dassler and that, like a bazillion other Adolph’s, he began to call himself Adi post-WW2. I know the same story–Adi Dassler shortened to Adidas–that you relate.