The name APL

APL is named after Ken Iverson's book A Programming Language, following a suggestion by Adin Falkoff. Despite being the source of the name "APL", Iverson's book describes not APL, but Iverson notation. The name "APL" is used only for computer implementations of Iverson's language, starting with APL\360.

Falkoff coined the name in 1966 during the implementation of APL\360 at IBM. Eugene McDonnell writes that, after considering other names such as "Mathlab" (MATLAB did not yet exist), inspiration struck: "Then one day Adin Falkoff walked into Ken's office and wrote "A Programming Language" on the board, and underneath it the acronym "APL"."

A week later, Eric Iverson asserted to McDonnell that the name was already well known.

The letters APL are shared by many other entities. Roger Hui remarks that he "started in 1966 on an APL machine that weighed 15,000 tons, when I travelled from Hong Kong to San Francisco on the S.S. President Wilson of the American President Lines."