Origins of the name Perl?

> Actually Perl isn't an acronym, that is a backronym.

Interesting. I've always known that I've been programming in Perl and not PERL. But I always assumed that the name came from "Practical Extraction..." or maybe "Pathologically Eclectic..." Does anyone know the story of how Larry chose the name Perl, if it's not an acronym?

It might even be worth passing this info along to the maintainers of the lexicon, since its entry for Perl is under the same misimpression I was...

laughingboy

Comment on Origins of the name Perl?

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Re: Origins of the name Perl? by Aristotle (Chancellor) on Aug 23, 2002 at 23:56 UTC
Actually, Perl comes from Pearl, which was what Larry used after he dropped the idea of using Gloria, his wife's first name, as name for the language. But Pearl is indeed a backronym for Practical Extraction And Report Language. Makeshifts last the longest.	[reply]
Re: Origins of the name Perl? by Abigail-II (Bishop) on Nov 13, 2002 at 16:28 UTC
Furthermore, Larry switched from "Pearl" to "Perl" after finding out "Pearl" was already the name of an existing language. (Legends go that it's the name of a language to do graphics in - it may be so, but I know there's also a language to write real time programs in that's called "Pearl"). Abigail	[reply]
Re: Re: Origins of the name Perl? by PetaMem (Priest) on Dec 09, 2002 at 08:46 UTC
Hi, Pearl is in fact the name of a (not-very-elegant) programming language you may use for robotics. My first contact with Perl was indeed, when I learned Perl and then came into the course, where they expected people to know Pearl. Man - I nearly collapsed. Then - they allowed to program either in C or Pearl. Me and a guy took the C, the rest of the class Pearl, we finished 90% of the exercises, the Pearl-people 30-40%. So you really aren't interested in this language. :-) Oh well - if you are: Look here Bye PetaMem	[reply]
Re: Origins of the name Perl? by Abigail-II (Bishop) on Feb 24, 2003 at 13:36 UTC
Re: Origins of the name Perl? by Anonymous Monk on Aug 23, 2002 at 21:58 UTC
All that I know is that the FAQ says that it isn't an acronym. I figure that they should know. Oh. And the Camel mentions that Larry tried both Gloria and Pearl as names before settling on Perl.	[reply]
Re: Origins of the name Perl? by jdporter (Paladin) on May 03, 2016 at 16:03 UTC
The Tuxedo.org link is stale/broken; see Perl entry at current location. Also, for completeness, see last known good of Tuxedo.org page in Wayback Machine.	[reply]
Re: Origins of the name Perl? by Anonymous Monk on Aug 24, 2002 at 00:31 UTC
What? ESR's lexicon wrong? Horrors! How could that possibly be?	[reply]