[TUHS] So who named Unix? [was multicians] Peter Neumann has died]

[Clem Cole via TUHS]

In Dennis's Oct 1984 BSTJ paper: "The Evolution of the Unix Operating
System" (
https://www.read.seas.harvard.edu/~kohler/class/aosref/ritchie84evolution.pdf),
in the last paraphraph of the section entired "Origins" on page 3, he says:

*"Up to this time all the programs were written using GECOS and files were
transferred to the PDP-7 on paper tape; but once an assembler was completed
the system was able to support itself. Although it was not until well into
1970 that Brian Kernighan suggested the name 'Unix,' in a somewhat
treacherous pun on 'Multics,' the operating system we know today was
born." *



On Thu, May 21, 2026 at 3:05 PM Arnold Robbins via TUHS <tuhs at tuhs.org>
wrote:

> In
>
> > https://cacm.acm.org/news/in-memoriam-peter-g-neumann-1932-2026/
>
> It's brought down that some stories credit Peter Neumann with the Unics
> pun on Multics. It's plausible as he as involved in Multics for Bell Labs,
> (apparently) was still around when Ken started working on the PDP-7 in
> 1969-1970, and he had a penchant for puns.
>
> Other histories I've seen credit Brian Kernighan with the naming. When
> I asked BWK some time back, he said he didn't remember.
>
> Doug and/or Ken, do either of you happen to remember definitively?
>
> Thanks,
>
> Arnold
>