What’s Behind the Names of 12 Famous Open‑Source Projects?

Like brand names such as "Kleenex" or "Coca‑Cola," open‑source projects also have distinctive names whose origins are often overlooked.

1. Arduino

Arduino is named after a bar called "di Re Arduino" that co‑founder Massimo Banzi frequented; the bar itself was named after the 11th‑century Italian king Arduin, and the name was chosen to honor that place.

2. Debian

Debian, created in 1993 by Ian Murdock, combines the names of his then‑girlfriend Debra Lynn and his own name Ian, forming the portmanteau "Debian".

3. Kubernetes

Kubernetes, the open‑source container orchestration system from Google, traces its name to the sci‑fi series "Star Trek"—the character Seven of Nine and the ship’s helm inspired the name, while its logo also references the series.

4. openSUSE

openSUSE derives from Germany; SUSE stands for "Software und System‑Entwicklung" (software and system development). After Novell acquired SUSE in 2003, the community edition was released in 2005 with the "open" prefix.

5. PHP

PHP originally stood for "Personal Home Page" tools created by Rasmus Lerdorf to maintain his own website; it later became a recursive acronym for "PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor".

6. Python

Guido van Rossum named the language "Python" after the British comedy group Monty Python, seeking a unique and slightly mysterious name while developing a new scripting interpreter during the holidays.

7. PostgreSQL

PostgreSQL began as "Postgres" in 1986 at UC Berkeley, created by Michael Stonebraker as a successor to the Ingres database, later adding "SQL" to emphasize its query language support.

8. Red Hat

Red Hat’s name comes from a red Cornell University hockey cap that co‑founder Bob Young’s grandfather gave him; the cap became a symbol for seeking help—"find the person with the red hat".

9. Ubuntu

Ubuntu’s name is taken from the Southern African Nguni word "ubuntu", meaning humanity or "I am because we are", reflecting a philosophy of community and shared existence.

10. FreeDOS

Initially called PD‑DOS (Public Domain DOS) in 1994, the project was renamed FreeDOS after realizing it aimed to be a free, open‑source DOS operating system; the hyphen was dropped around 1996.

11. MariaDB

MariaDB was created as a fork of MySQL after Oracle’s acquisition; its name honors Michael "Monty" Widenius’s daughter Maria.

12. Wikipedia

"Wiki" comes from the Hawaiian word for "quick"; combined with "pedia" (encyclopedia), it forms Wikipedia, a fast‑access online encyclopedia first created by Howard G. "Ward" Cunningham in 1995.