[R] R, S, S-Plus, whence comes thy name?

[Ben Bolker]

John Sorkin <jsorkin <at> grecc.umaryland.edu> writes:

>  How did S, S-Plus, and R get their names? 

  From

http://stat.bell-labs.com/S/

http://cm.bell-labs.com/stat/doc/94.11.ps

by Rick Becker

 By July, 1976, we decided to name the system. Acronyms were 
in abundance at Bell Laboratories, so it seemed sure that we would 
come up with one for our system, but no one seemed to be able to 
agree with any one else's suggestion: Interactive SCS (ISCS), 
Statistical Computing System (too confusing), Statistical 
Analysis System (already taken), etc. In the end, we decided that
all of these names contained an `S' and, with the C programming 
language as a precedent, decided to name the system `S'. (We dropped 
the quotes by 1979).