I'd often wondered why the East India Company was known as "John Company", and a reader's query about the same in one of the national newspapers, came up with it being that the company was known as Kumpani Jahan (or John Company).

Probably everyone else reading the list knew this but I certainly didn't.

Hobson-Jobson (which is online) has an interesting discussion of this -the authors do not seem confident as to the origins of the term.

It was known in India as Company Bahadur from the Hindustani "bahādur" - authority