"I said 'OK, whatever,'" Dell said. But then, as lawyers often do, the attorney asked for $1,000. "He tells me you can't incorporate a company unless you have a thousand dollars."

"I don't have a thousand dollars. I tell him it's going to take me a few days to build some more stuff, and I'll come back with the money," Dell said. "And then incorporates PCs Limited as Dell Computer Corporation Doing Business As PCs Limited."

Fast-forward several years to 1987, Dell recalled, and he is establishing Dell's first European beachhead in Great Britain.   

"We are launching in the UK, and Andrew Harris [former president of Dell Computer International] says we can't be PCs Limited because as Dell was expanding the word 'limited' made no sense at all," Dell said. "So, what am I supposed to call this thing?"

"We are back in Austin working and are so busy we don't even have time to worry about a name," Dell said. "We are like, 'We don't know.'

"So [Harris] goes, 'I'm just going to call it Dell Computer Corporation because that's the name of the company,"' Dell said. "And so there was a time where we were Dell Computer Corporation in the UK, and we were Dell Computer Corporation Doing Business As PCs Limited in the U.S.," Dell said.  

It wasn't until 1988, when Dell completed its initial public offering, raising $30 million with a market capitalization of $85 million, that Michael Dell was finally convinced to change the name to just Dell Computer Corporation.

"A bunch of people convinced me -- and it was not my idea -- to change the trading name in the U.S. to Dell," Dell said.

In 2003, Dell's board of directors is credited for changing the name again from Dell Computer Corporation to Dell Inc. At the time, the board members said the name change, most importantly dropping "computer" from the name, more accurately reflected the company's expansion of selling primarily desktops and laptops to a strategy based on a broader product line that included servers, storage and software services.

But, of course, Michael Dell points out, the real credit goes to his parents.

"That's the story of how our name became the name we have today. But I really thank my parents. Sometimes you're just lucky, and stuff happens," Dell said.