Why is npm's name not Node Package Manager?

Question

I was watching a tutorial which (to my astonishment) said npm is not an acronym for Node Package Manager. I thought the presenter was trying to be funny or controversial. Someone else mentioned that its a name, not an acronym:

"npm" doesn't stand for "Node Package Manager". It stands for "npm Is Not An Acronym". Why not "NINAA"? Because then it would be an acronym.

Does anyone know the history behind this? Or why it was then labeled Node Package Manager, instead of just being called npm?

Answer 1

npm did stand for Node Package Manager. It absolutely did. But later someone decided they wanted to give the appearance that it could or should be used for software not related to Node, so they had to strip it of its meaning.

Just like DVD, which was Digital Video Disc until manufacturers decided to market it for things other than video. Likewise KFC and BP now insist their names are meaningless, in efforts to sidestep negative connotations (respectively Fried and British).

For more on this, see: http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/003555.html