Zebra Pen Corporation was founded in New York in August 1982 as an independent corporation wholly owned by Zebra Co. Ltd., of Tokyo, Japan.

The Zebra trademark was adopted in 1914. Legend has it that Mr. Ishikawa, founder of Zebra Co. Ltd., wanted a company name that would be memorable and also appropriate for their export business to other countries. He took an English/Japanese dictionary and, opening it Japanese style from the back, started with the "Z" words. He stopped at "Zebra".