EN
The presented text is a reflection on family entrepreneurship in the Czech milieu. It asks when the current term of family company originated and how its meaning developed. It concludes that modern family entrepreneurship, which results in a modern entrepreneurial tradition gradually transforming into a family brand or logo and constituting business culture inside as well as outside the company, can be traced to the late 18th century. A massive development of private family companies arrived in Central Europe in the second half of the 19th century, but the companies had no need to present themselves as family companies. Establishment of the term as we know it now occurred almost undetected in the interwar period. The tradition of the company and its roots are often much older than the term “family firm” itself.