The name 'Dobro' was first used in 1928, when the Dobro Manufacturing Company was formed by the Dopyera Brothers. This company manufactured a new guitar called the Dobro which had a resonator guitar design. The word 'dobro' means 'good' in Slovak. The Gibson Guitar Corporation patented the name Dobro in 1993, and decided to defend its rights to exclusively use the name for a resonator styled guitar design.

The Dobro was designed by John Dopyera, also the inventor of the original resonator guitar. This guitar has a single resonator cone that is inverted, so the concave surface faces up. The strings rest on an 8-legged cast aluminum 'spider' on the perimeter of the cone. Unlike the original tri-cone design, this guitar sounded louder and was comparatively cheaper to produce. After World War II in 1941, the production of resonator guitars had completely stopped. But Emile Dopyera resumed its production in 1959; and later in 1967, Rudy and Emile formed the Original Musical Instrument Company (OMI). They produced the resonator guitar under the name of 'Hound Dog' which was again changed to 'Dobro' in 1970. Then in 1993, OMI and the 'Dobro' name were purchased by the Gibson Guitar Corporation. After reserving exclusive rights to the 'Dobro' name, some guitarists eventually started referring to their Dobro guitars as TIFKAD guitars, which meant 'The Instrument Formerly Known As Dobro'.

Today, Gibson uses 'Dobro' exclusively for the original inverted-cone design guitars and the biscuit-style single resonator guitars under names such as 'Epiphone' and 'Hound Dog'.