The original purpose of oceanus.no was to promote a dive school, and once upon a time, Oceanus was, in fact, IANTD Training Facility & Blending Station # 700. That wall diploma has nothing but sentimental value these days, but I kept the domain name.

The name for the business was a result of a brainstorming process starting with defining four absolute criteria; the name should not contain the Norwegian letters æ, ø or å, it should be pronounced equally on all major languages, it should have a maritime touch to it, and finally the .com or .no domain name had to be available.

The search led into mythology and the ancient Gods, where Oceanus (Greek: Ὠκεανός) was believed to be the world-ocean, or an enormous river encircling the world. In Greek mythology this world-ocean was personified as a Titan God, son of Uranus and Gaia. Some believe that Oceanus originally represented all bodies of salt water, including the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean, the two largest bodies known to the ancient Greeks. In Homers Iliad, Oceanus is referred to as ”the great Sea God who encircles the world”.

That sounded pretty cool to me, Oceanus met all the criteria for the choice of name, and the .no domain was available. I registered oceanus.no on November 15 in 1999.

Have you ever been to Rome? Then you must have visited the Trevi fountain. Most likely you also have photos of the fountain, perhaps even a selfie. Of you, and Oceanus. The statue in the centre of the Trevi fountain is him.

Millions of people visit the Trevi fountain every year. Google Trevi, and you will find photos of Oceanus by people from all over the world. So he is still encircling the world – in pixels.

The Trevi Fountain in Rome, Italy.
The largest Baroque fountain in the city and one of the most famous fountains in the world.