[Barrie Yates]

Another possibility - the history of nylon
Prof. L. Trossarelli -Dipartimento di Chimica IFM dell’Università di Torino, Via P. Giuria 7 Torino, Italy
The origin of the word nylon has been told in what may be called an official story. But as in all stories, there is a legend. One apocryphal versions were passed on more by word of mouth than anything else and are still better known and more widely believed than the official story.
Throughout its development and prior to its introduction on the market, polyamide 66 was simply referred to as fibre 66. When the time came to launch it, a trade name obviously had to be found. One year before nylon announcement, Dr. H. Church, head of research at DuPont's rayon Department at Buffalo, suggested playfully the acroym Duparooh, which stood for DuPont "DuPont ulls a Rabbit Out of hat". Names such as novasilk and synthesilk were discarded because the company wanted its new synthetic fibre to conquer the market on account of all its high qualities and not just as a substitute for silk. A committee of three formed in 1938 collected a list of 400 names but no one of them met approval. Dr. E.K.Gladding, one of the committee member, proposed Norun with stockings in mind, but changed it to Nuron since also stockings of the new fibre would run. Here, however, the question of how this should be pronounced arose. An American "noo" (= new) as in "noon" was possible, but a British "new" would have seemed like "neuron". Replacement of the "r" by an "l" to form "nulon" was proposed, but once again the sound of the "u" would be uncertain and an expression such as "new nulon" would also be cacophonic. At this point a vowel change was suggested: "nilon" instead of "nulon". But was this "ni" to be pronounced as in "need" or in "nine" ? In the end, the name selection committee opted for a "y". The pronunciation problem was solved and "nylon" was born.
This is the official DuPont version. The legend is much more intriguing and presumably offers one of the many examples of a tendency among English-speaking peoples to invent humorous, sarcastic or derogatory versions of familiar acronyms. It was not very difficult, therefore, for some wag to come up with "Now You Lose Old Nippon" or "Now You Lousy Old Nippon". Apart from the evident threat posed by nylon to Japan as the largest producer of natural silk and hence the end of its leadership in the manufacture of fibres and choice fabrics, the period when nylon appeared was marked by very strong anti-Japanese feelings. An American success was thus accompanied by an open desire to offend Japan. The two appealing versions probably saw the light at the same time as nylon itself in October 1938 and quickly spread from coast to coast. Such was their effect, indeed, and so much better were they known than the official version, that in February 1941 DuPont commissioned a Japanese newspaper to publish a denial that the word nylon had the meanings attributed to it. This however has never become sufficiently known to dethrone the legendary versions in the eyes of the mass of mankind, even today.