Back in 1909, Hohner trademarked the not particularly catchy slogan "Homer Harmonicas are the best of all, buy them and play them."
Hey, wait a minute... "Homer"??? D'oh!
Mistakes happen from time to time in the world of trademarks. For example, I was initially very confused by the trademark for "Dibarary Band", registered in 1921 by Max Levin of Nuremberg, as the word ""Dibarary" didn't seem to exist anywhere else. However, it made more sense when I found a later trademark from the same company for "Tipperary Band".
So why, then, did Hohner trademark the name "Homer" almost thirty years later?
Then again in 1972:
These were not typos, as becomes apparent when you see some of the other names they trademarked in the 1920s and 1930s:
Presumably, the idea was to prevent a competitor from cashing in on Hohner's success by using names that looked or sounded similar. That said, it would have been interesting if Hofner, a German musical instrument company famous for making the so-called Beatle Bass, had decided to move into the harmonica business back in the 30s.
Interestingly, Hohner didn't trademark what, at least in my experience, is the the most common misspelling of their name, until 1950;
Finally, just in case you've forgotten how the name is supposed to be spelled:
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