Linda Etymology

Yes, there really is a language named after ex-porn actress Linda Lovelace.

---

From http://www.cerias.purdue.edu/homes/spaf/Yucks/V2/msg00008.html:

  Date: Fri, 31 Jan 92 23:38:07 -0800
  From: rissa@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us (Patricia O Tuama)
  Subject: linda
  To: eniac@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us

  from the 1/19/92 New York Times, "DavidGelernter's Romance with Linda" (sect 3, p1,6)

  When it came time to name the language, Mr Gelernter said he noted
  that Ada was named after Ada Augusta Lovelace, the daughter of Lord
  Byron, the English poet.  Miss Lovelace is regarded as the first
  computer programmer because she worked for the computer pioneer
  Charles Babbage.

  Another woman named Lovelace was in the news when Mr Gelernter was
  casting about for a name -- Linda Lovelace, a star of pornographic
  films.  So he named the language Linda, and it stuck.  Asked about it
  now, Mr Gelernter grins and shrugs, "I was a graduate student at the time," he said.

A search for "linda tuple lovelace" on Google turns up some other links, which at one time included a Linda Lovelace fan page that referred to the eponymous language.

And we would all watch the movie "Deep Thought" starring AdaLovelace.

---

See ProgrammingLanguageNamingPatterns