Software Development

What’s in a name : Reason behind naming of few great projects

This is in conitunuation of my previous post where i have listed the reason behind naming of several great projects.I have found some more languages , product and organization .

Why Name AMAZON:

Amazon[need no introduction] was founded by Jeff Bezos. Bezos wanted a name for his company that began with “A” so that it would appear early in alphabetic order. He began looking through the dictionary and settled on “Amazon” because it was a place that was “exotic and different” and it was one of the biggest rivers in the world, as he hoped his company would be! (Source)

Why Name Geronimo :

Apache Geronimo is an open source server runtime that integrates the best open source projects to create Java/OSGi server runtime. Geronimo was an Apache leader who fought with US and mexico army.There is also a controversy that the U.S. operation to kill Osama bin Laden also used the code name “Geronimo”.

Why Name Selenium :

The open source Selenium web testing tool was named as a jab at its ostensible commercial rival, Mercury QuickTest Pro (Mercury was later bought by HP). Selenium mineral supplements are used as an antidote to mercury poisoning, and so was the test tool meant as an antidote to QTP! (Source)

Why Name DJango:

Django is a high-level Python Web framework and named after the jazz guitarist Django Reinhardt.

Why Name Perl:

Programming language Perl [created by Larry Wall]was originally named “Pearl”. Wall wanted to give the language a short name with positive connotations; he claims that he considered (and rejected) every three- and four-letter word in the dictionary. He also considered naming it after his wife Gloria. Wall discovered the existing PEARL programming language before Perl’s official release and changed the spelling of the name. (Ref)

Why Name Ruby:

Ruby was conceived on February 24, 1993 by Yukihiro Matsumoto who wished to create a new language that was more powerful than Perl, and more object-oriented than Python.The main factor in choosing the name “Ruby” was because it was the birthstone of one of his colleagues. (Ref)

Why Name Mozilla :

Mozilla was the mascot of the now disbanded Netscape Communications Corporation.The name “Mozilla” was already in use at Netscape as the codename for Netscape Navigator 1.0. The term came from a combination of “Mosaic killer” (as Netscape wanted to displace NCSA Mosaic as the world’s number one web browser) and Godzilla. Apparently , Firefox , the flagship product of mozilla went through several name changes . Originally titled Phoenix , then changed to firebird and now firefox. (Source 1 Source 2)

Why Name Yahoo!

The word “Yahoo” was invented by Jonathan Swift for the Travels.The name Yahoo! purportedly stands for “Yet Another Hierarchical Officious Oracle,” but Jerry Yang and David Filo insist they selected the name because they considered themselves yahoos.The very first name of yahoo was “Akebono”[name of legendary Hawaiian sumo wrestlers].Yahoo name was already registered with someone else so a exclamation mark was put and made it yahoo!. (Source)

Why Name Windows:

The name Windows fits into that philosophy. At the time of its original release late in 1985, most operating systems were single-tasking, text-only, and ran from a command line–like DOS if you remember that. Graphic user interfaces (GUIs) were still new. The Mac, less than two years old at that time, was the only GUI-based system enjoying commercial success. The word windows simply described one of the most obvious differences between a GUI and a command-line interface. (Source)

Why Name Pramati

For those who don’t know , pramati build application servers , just like JBOSS , APACHE etc. Pramati is a Sanskrit word which means “Exceptional Minds”. I worked there as a java developer.

Why Name Scala

The name Scala is a blend of “scalable” and “language”, signifying that it is designed to grow with the demands of its users. James Strachan, the creator of Groovy, described Scala as a possible successor to Java . (Source)
 

Reference: What’s in a name : Reason behind naming of few great projects from our JCG partner Abhishek Somani at the Java , J2EE , Server blog.

Abhishek Somani

Abhishek is working as a senior java developer in a product start up .He has worked on various java related enterprise applications and frameworks. He loves to explore new technologies
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