coca-cola's marketing research department used its ibm 1401 computer to generate a list of over 185,000 four-letter words with one vowel, adding names suggested by the company's own staff; the list was stripped of any words deemed unpronounceable or too similar to existing trademarks. of a final list of about twenty names, "tabb" was chosen, influenced by the possible play on words, and shortened to "tab" during development. packaging designer robert sidney dickens gave the name the capitalization pattern ("tab") used in the logo as well as creating a new bottle design for the soft drink.