TikTok's original name was "Douyin." Douyin was launched in September 2016 by the Chinese company ByteDance. It was initially released in the Chinese market and gained significant popularity. In 2017, ByteDance launched a separate version of the app called TikTok for international users outside of China. The international version of the app gained immense popularity, and eventually, in August 2018, ByteDance decided to merge Douyin and TikTok into a single platform, using the name "TikTok" globally. While the two apps still have some regional differences, they share a similar concept and most of the features.