Mazda began as the Toyo Cork Kogyo Co., Ltd, founded in Japan in 1920. The company website states that name "derives from Ahura Mazda, a god of the earliest civilizations in West Asia...the god of wisdom, intelligence and harmony..." Ahura Mazda is the Iranian – Zoroastrian God. The company website also notes that the name "also derives from the name of our founder, Jujiro Matsuda."