Uber isn't a German word. It's (originally) a colloquial word in some (American) English sociolects. It's based on German "über" and started as a loanword, but like many such words it has taken on an entirely unrelated meaning of its own.

I'm pretty sure I've seen "uber" (with either spelling but pronounced in English) on the web and on IRC as early as the 1990s. It likely spread beyond the online use when the web became mainstream.

Disclaimer: German native speaker who used to spend way too much time around linguists.

Yeah, Wiktionary calls the English loanword (without umlaut) /ˈuːbər/ and the German /ˈyːbɐ/. I think it's been a fairly ironic productive prefix in some people's informal English for a while, often hyphenated, like "uber-cool", "uber-interesting", ?"uber-dangerous". (Latin "super" is cognate with German über as well as Greek "ὑπέρ" (hyper)!)

Yes, its use is pretty similar to super/mega in German.

And you can't mention the German "super" in 2014 without pointing out this viral marketing campaign: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jxVcgDMBU94 (explanation: http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2014/02/24/supergeil_ede... )

Playing devil's advocate here, but couldn't the company have picked its name from the Latin ubertas? (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/ubertas)

This, too. The point is that "Uber" by virtue of being a proper name in English is entirely unrelated to the German word "über", even if that may be where its etymological roots lie. This is a perfectly natural process.

I mean, you wouldn't catch anyone on German television pronounce Zuckerberg's name as /ʦʊkɐbɛɐk/, even if it may be of German (Jewish, I presume?) origin.

PS: I think the Duden and Wiktionary are full of shit -- I've never heard anyone in Germany pronounce "Berg" with an actual "r". Maybe I'm missing some subtleties of German phonetic transcription here, but that's an /ɛɐ/ diphthong if I've ever seen one.

Laughable names are what we do in Sillicon Valley. Our biggest companies are named after a child's gurgle (Google) and a "crude or brutish person" (Yahoo). The more laughable your company's name is, the better off you are. It's like wearing something really unfashionable in public. If you can pull it off, you must have confidence.

i thought google was derived from googol, as in the large number.

I'm against companies taking over simple words. I think Uber is worse than Apple. Apple is a common noun. In German über is a common modifier. Much more confusing than adopting a noun. I don't think it would fly if Uber started in Germany so I don't appreciate them using the name in English-speaking countries to get started, and having it expand.