A small bit of history from Tom Lane one of the biggest contributors to the project "Arguably, the 1996 decision to call it PostgreSQL instead of reverting to plain Postgres was the single worst mistake this project ever made."

- https://www.postgresql.org/message-id/[email protected]...

> It seems too late to change it now

That's what they said in 1996. Then they said it again in 2006. In 2026 when its interwoven in all sorts of AI systems and still causing confusion, they will be looking back thinking why didn't they fix it back in 2017 when they still could. "Now" is always the right time, it's never too late.

“The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now.” – Chinese Proverb

And the name "Postgres" was an extension of "Ingres":

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ingres_(database)

You may call it Postgres: https://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/ProjectName

Or pg if the context is clear enough.

That might be more than slightly confusing here on Hacker News.

psql? pgsql?

Now we wait for pg to release his Arc lisp based database system called pgsql

Neither works: psql is the bundled postgres shell and (pl/)pgsql is posgres's procedural SQL extension (inspired by Oracle/s pl/sql) so both are pretty ambiguous.

pgsql is exclusive to postgresql, and from the context, it should very easy to know if you talking about the programming language or postgresql

pg sequel or pg ess-queue-el

are both very good, short, and difficult to confuse with another project or product

i think psql refer specifically to the command line tool of pgsql

It's called Postgres because it was the second DBMS that Stonebraker started after Ingres. So it's "post Ingres", or "post gres"

Then they made it speak SQL, so it was called PostgreSQL, which some might confuse as "Postgre SQL".

If only a clunky name was the worst problem with some software (even closed source) we have to deal with.

Slightly clunky names are fine as long as they're somewhat cute or clever. Names are important because it's how we identify and remember things, and a catchy name (even if it seems a little ridiculous or clunky) is better than a boring, banal name if the catchy name is memorable.

I'll take PostgreSQL's name (which I consider clever) any day over some name completely devoid of originality or thoughtfulness, such as most of the names Microsoft uses for its software.

Yes, at least it's searchable. The current trend of using common words as names was ridiculous as of a few years ago. Now it's just painful. Someone's going to name their project "The" and I'm not sure I'll be able to remain civil at that point.

There used to be a project named “THE”, but its name was changed to “Archy”:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archy

Microsoft's naming (or lack of) is a mixed blessing.. usually combining "Microsoft" + term works... what sucks is when you search for anything "SQL" and you get a bunch of MS-SQL related links... really, T-SQL and MS-SQL should always be prefixed when referring to the vendor's product.

> The PostststgreSQL project never fails to impress me.

Let's see how many iterations we'll need for people to actually notice what was pointed out here ;)

I see clunky names as neutral, as the reduction in search engine collisions usually balances the difficulty in typing.

Maybe, but it's a much better name than mysql. I feel like a little kid every time I say "my" anything.

"My" of MySQL is Monty's daughter.

"He lives in Helsinki with his second wife Anna and daughter Maria (after whom MariaDB was named), and has a daughter My (after whom MySQL was named)[14] and a son Max (giving the name for MaxDB) from his first marriage" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Widenius

Also, I'm pretty sure most of us are mispronouncing MySQL: IIRC, "My" (the Finnish name of his daughter) is pronounced like English "Me".

The y is pronounced like the ü in über.

A tip that works for some: lips to say "oooo" (like an owl, or someone seeing something shiny for the first time), tongue to say "eeee". Well, worth a try.

Actually it's more like the 'j' in Eyjafjallajökull.

Wait, I think you are all just fucking with me...

"MooSQL"

Not the American pronounciation!

The ü in über is pronounced [y]. I wonder if IPA originally got this symbol from Finnish orthography, then.

I think you will find [y] in most Germanic languages, including German, Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, (most likely) Icelandic, and Dutch, so probably not. But it is a very "Finnish" vowel though... Hyyvää!

Besides, Widenius is Swedish speaking (just like Linus Thorvalds and about 10% of the people of Finland) and the name "My" was more or less invented by the also Swedish speaking Finnish author Tove Jansson in her books about the Moomins.

Although wikipedia claims it to be a short form of Mary or Maria, which I seriously doubt.

Anyway, Finnish has not that much to do with the name, I think that it allegedly was Tove Janssons uncle - a professor in mathematics, that suggested the name based on the mathematical symbol and Greek letter μ pronounced in Swedish. It might even be vaguely similar to how it was pronounced in ancient Greek :-)

Besides, I think that "My" in Finnish would be spelled "Myy" since just about the only simple thing with the Finnish language is that the vowel length is indicated by the number of characters.

Oh, thanks! I was led astray by people earlier in the thread mentioning Finnish and so I simply assumed Monty's first language was Finnish, which, as you point out, it isn't.

Maybe Monty should upload an .au file somewhere saying "Hello, this is Monty Widenius, and I pronounce MySQL as MySQL"!

I don't speak Finnish. But I did once hear David Axmark pronounce My's name, and to my ear it sounded like "Mih" - an "M" followed by a short vowel similar to the vowel in "bit". In other words, My's name is the same as Mitt Romney's first name, just without the "t" at the end.

You might want IPA [ɪ]. (But another comment in this thread suggested [y], a sound that English doesn't have, and which is close in several ways to English [i] in "me" or [ɪ] in "bit".)

My is a Swedish name, not a Finnish one, as Monty is a Swedish-speaking Finn. It's pronounced similar to "Myeuh", so "Myeuh Ess Kuh Ell".

The variations on the project name I've read in this thread alone are amusing.

Three of them being: Postgre Postgreql PoststgreSQL

On the other hand it makes for more relevant search results!

Edit: did not see the typo at first though the word seemed longer than usual...

Too bad they didn't name it something non-controversial like cockroach.

Given a choice, I would name it PostSQL.