Helvetica Typeface come from?

tl;dr It appears that Helvetica is Latin for Swiss

In 1960, the typeface's name was changed by Haas' German parent company Stempel to Helvetica (meaning Swiss in Latin) in order to make it more marketable internationally

source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helvetica#History

For historical reasons, Switzerland's official name is still the Swiss Confederation. In Latin this is Confoederatio Helvetica, from which the country's international abbreviation, CH, is derived.

source: http://www.swissworld.org/en/politics/general_information/ch_confoederatio_helvetica/

swissworld.org is published by the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs, General Secretariat, Presence Switzerland.

from: http://www.swissworld.org/en/about_swissworld/

Hi Aurelian,

Die Neue Haus Grotesk is the original name. Helvetica = 'Swiss' in Latin, and the name was changed in 1960, a marketing decision (derived from Swiss goddess Helvetia, who in turn gives her name to Confoederatio Helvetica - Swiss Confederation). Also yes, Helvetica is technically a place.

The Wikipedia article is fairly accurate. Helvetica Best of luck, :)

Hello,

I am from Switzerland, so I can confirm first hand what James and Ogechi already wrote. The two creators of Helvetica, Max Miedinger (the graphic artist) and Eduard Hoffmann (his boss) worked both at a company near Basel, Switzerland. They initially wanted to call the new font HELVETIA (note the missing C), which is the latin name for Switzerland, but there were already two companies with the name Helvetia (an insurance company which still exists today and a sewing machine company), so they chose the name "HELVETICA" - which basically means "the swiss" or "from switzerland". It is also true that the official latin name of Switzerland is "confederatio helvetica" = "the swiss confederation".