The past year has seen many brands shed their old name and assume a whole new identity. Amid the Black Lives Matter movement and the greater push for equality it has inspired, expunging a racist connotation has been the key driver, but not the only one. Click or scroll through 30 brands that adopted or pledged to take on a new moniker and why.

Mars Inc. bowed to public pressure in September and announced it would be changing the name of its iconic Uncle Ben's rice product range to Ben's Original and ditching the controversial packaging imagery. 'Uncle' is considered derogatory in this context as it was often used in the past in a disrespectful way by White people in the South to avoid calling a Black man Mr, while the image of the smiling elderly African-American man wearing what could be the collar and bow-tie of a servant evokes the myth of happy servitude.

The Uncle Ben's name change came hot on the heels of the retirement of PepsiCo's Aunt Jemima. Like Uncle Ben's, both the name and product imagery could be considered racist – in this case the use of 'Aunt' in a disrespectful way and the product picture, which evokes the racist 'Mammy' stereotype. Not everyone agrees however, including the descendants of Aunt Jemima models Lillian Richard and Anna Short Harrington, who have objected to the rebrand. In February this year PepsiCo announced that the pancake mix and syrup products will be sold under the new name Pearl Milling Company from June 2021.

Rival syrup brand Mrs. Butterworth's also evokes the 'Mammy' stereotype with its bottle shaped in the form of a matronly woman. In July last year, the brand's parent company acknowledged that its product could be perceived in a negative way and promised to conduct a complete brand and packaging review, which could include a name change.

Activists have fought for years to have the name of this Australian cheese brand changed, with some claiming the moniker was adopted in the 1930s as a “racist joke”, challenging the official story, which states the product was named after American cheesemaker Edward William Coon. Whatever its origins, current owner, the Canadian dairy firm Saputo, agreed the offensive name had to go and declared in July the brand would be retired.

Sports teams with names that could be perceived as culturally insensitive at best and blatantly racist at worst haven't held back from rebranding this year, including the Cleveland Indians. The baseball team has committed to changing its name, which many Native American people take issue with, along with a logo that could be viewed as perpetuating damaging stereotypes.

Staying with sports teams, the Washington Redskins finally dropped the Redskins part in 2020 after decades of pressure from activists, who associate the football team's name and imagery with harmful stereotypes. In fact, the decision came after sponsors Nike, FedEx and PepsiCo, acting on calls by investors, urged the team to drop the racist epithet.

Nestlé is renaming a brand of candy it sells in Australia called Red Skins for the exact same reason. The company released a statement in November last year admitting the brand was “out of the step” with Nestlé values and went on to change the product's name to Red Ripper, which has raised more than a few eyebrows given it's the nickname of an infamous Russian serial killer.

At the same time, the Swiss food giant revealed it would be giving the Chicos brand of candy, which also retails in Australia, a new identity following customer feedback. The name of the chocolate-flavoured jelly baby confection means 'boys' in Spanish and has racist overtones. The product will now be called Cheekies.

Nestlé didn't stop there. Following what must have been an in-depth review of its brands around the world, the Swiss company also made the decision to rename its Beso de Negra chocolate-coated marshmallow product, which is sold in Colombia. Along with a name that means 'kiss from a black woman', the packaging features what many would argue is a racist caricature of a woman of colour.

Knorr has been doing much the same thing. In June last year, the German food company, which is owned by Unilever, said it would be renaming its classic Zigeuner Sauce ('Gypsy Sauce') to Paprikasauce Ungarische Art ('Paprika Sauce Hungarian Style'). Activists had voiced strong objections to the word 'Zigeuner', which is a racial slur against Roma and Sinti people.

Unbelievably, this restaurant chain, which had a South Indian boy as a mascot along with a racist name, once had 1,100 locations across the US. The last remaining Sambo's in Santa Barbara, California changed its name earlier this year when members of the public, compelled to act by Black Lives Matter, petitioned the owner, who initially rebranded as 'Peace and Love', then called the place Chad's after himself.

Used to refer to the South of the US, the word 'Dixie' is laden with connotations of slavery and racism, which has prompted an increasing number of brands that bear the name to drop it completely. Cue the beverage formally known as Dixie Beer. Mindful of the name's negative associations, the Big Easy's oldest brewery has rebranded as the Faubourg Brewing Company in tribute to the “diverse neighbourhoods of New Orleans”.

Ditto country music band Dixie Chicks. Having become uncomfortable with the connotations the word 'Dixie' conjures up, the politically outspoken group, which caused a storm in 2003 when its members expressed their objection to the Iraq War, deleted the word from their name back in June and are now known simply as the Chicks.

Another country music band, Lady Antebellum did some serious soul searching in 2020 and decided to scrap the word 'Antebellum' from their name. Antebellum refers to the pre-Civil War American South and everything associated with it, including slavery, which the term is seen as romanticising. Now called Lady A, the band was inspired to change the name by the Black Lives Matter protests.

In June 2020, US band Slaves followed Dixie Chicks and Lady Antebellum to announce a name change, which its five members said had come about through their support of the Black Lives Matter movement and the realisation the word has racist connotations and is associated “with so much pain and hurt”. However, a UK band which also uses the name Slaves has refused to change its name, despite criticism that the term being used by a band of White men could be deemed racist. Guitarist Laurie Vincent explained: "If you pick up an Oxford dictionary and look up the word 'slaves', there is no mention of any racial context. A slave is a person who is owned by another person and forced to work for free."  

The word 'Eskimo' has been recognised as a racial slur for years, but still featured in many brand names around the world. Not any more. Dreyer's for instance has removed the offensive term from its Eskimo Pie, which was launched a hundred years ago, renaming the chocolate-coated vanilla ice cream bar Edy's Pie after one of the company's founders.

Adding to the push to call time on the racist name, the Edmonton Eskimos Canadian football team also moved to change its moniker following months of consultation with the lnuit community. The team is dropping 'Eskimos' and has turned to its fans to come up with a new name, putting seven up for vote: Elk, Evergreens, Evergolds, Eclipse, Elkhounds, Eagles and Elements. The new name should be finalised by April 2021.

Understanding “the hurtful connotation the word 'plantation' can evoke to some people”, Maison Ferrand, the French drinks company behind Plantation Rum, said in June that it would change the product's name, which is closely associated with slavery and the oppressive system that propped it up.

Spurred on by Black Lives matter, the "Great Racist Purge", as one commentator has called it, reached far and wide in 2020. And so Colgate told the world in June that it was reviewing the name of its product Darlie, which is sold in Asia. Originally called Darkie, the name means "Black person toothpaste" in Chinese and together with the package imagery of a man in a top hat that is reminiscent of a minstrel performer in blackface, has been thought of as racist for decades.

The popularity of these products is bad news for millions

Products that lighten skin tone have long been criticised for their role promoting colourism and racist beauty ideals, so it comes as no surprise manufacturers are keen to play down their whitening properties. Unilever, for example, is changing the name of its Fair & Lovely product range, which is massively popular in Asia, to Glow & Lovely, and eliminating the words 'fair', 'lightening' and 'whitening' from all brand names.

Johnson & Johnson has joined Unilever in axing products that have the word 'fair' or 'fairness' in their name, including the firm's Clean & Clear Fairness skin-whitening line. The products disappeared from stores in India earlier this year. The US company is also culling the Neutrogena Fine Fairness range that retails in Middle East and Asia.

L'Oréal is taking action as well to remove the words 'fair', 'light', 'white' and 'whitening' from its extensive range of skincare products to stand “in solidarity with the Black community, and against injustice of any kind”. Among the brands that is undoubtedly going for good is White Perfect, one of the French firm's flagship skincare lines.

New Zealand's Indiginous Gin was blasted in early 2020 for shameless cultural appropriation over its gin's label, which features a design based on a traditional Māori tattoo. The uproar led to company ditching the label and has inspired it to change its name that plays on the world 'indigenous'. 

Criticism of Trader Joe's seemingly racist ethnic food brands, which had names like Trader Ming's, Trader Jose's, Arabian Joe and Trader Giotto's reached fever pitch in 2020. While the US supermarket chain insisted the names were not racist or represented cultural appropriation, the brands were renamed in July after an online petition calling for their removal amassed thousands of signatures.

Cleaning product Spic and Span may have taken its name from a phrase meaning spotlessly clean, but marketers exploited the pejorative meaning of the word 'Spic' and created the 'Senior Sleepy' mascot, basically an offensive caricature of a Hispanic man. In June last year, Proctor & Gamble came clean about “the brand’s origins rooted in racial hatred of Latino peoples”, and vowed to change the name and logo.

Vegan cookbook brand Thug Kitchen was accused of "digital blackface" and exploiting Black culture due to the use of the word 'thug' in its name, before it eventually resolved to rebrand to Bad Manners in the summer of 2020. The LA-based company defended its use of the term, explaining that it wasn't so loaded when the brand was born in 2012.