That was an entirely different auto. In C89, auto just "variable on the stack". It still had a type. The new auto is just borrowing the keyword since it (a) makes sense and (b) is already a reserved word.

How the keyword was named when Bjarne introduced it doesn't matter, the purpose was the same as C++11 auto.

It was entirely another concept.

Before C++11 auto meant it was not static, extern or register, and in fact every single variable was already implicitly auto if no specifier from the previous list was applied.

    int n = 10;

In that line, n was auto. Now it is not auto, only int.

Type inference is orthogonal to whatever keyword is used.

Bjarne used another keyword in C with Classes, removed it due to backslash, and the commite decided to re-purpose auto for the same purpose in C++11.

No big deal, the meaning of static is also context dependent, and no one is fighting against it like it happens with the new meaning for auto.