[LLVMdev] Compiler name: Nāga

Michael McCracken michael.mccracken at gmail.com
Thu Apr 12 10:57:49 PDT 2007


Hi, the idea of a dragon theme reminded me of the dragon-like serpents
called "Nāga" from Cambodian mythology, among other places.

Here's a brief link explaining the specific Cambodian meaning -
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naga_(mythology)#N.C4.81gas_in_Cambodia

I like this as a name, because it's unique  short and easy to type and
remember (as long as you omit the accent, which is commonly done),
it's basically a southeast-asian dragon, so we're sticking with
traditional compiler iconography, and it's seven-headed, so it nicely
represents the many different uses LLVM can be put to.

It's also pretty easy to imagine a logo, because Cambodian Nāga
sculptures are pretty memorable as is:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:NagaPhnomPenh.jpg
They're all over Angkor, too. I picture a simplified line-drawing of a
seven-headed serpent like the one in the image.

For what it's worth, there are also a couple other good-sounding Asian
dragon names on the wikipedia page for Nāga: "Lóng" (Chinese), "Ryū"
(Japanese), and my second-favorite after Nāga, "kyo" ("Korean mountain
dragon"), which has nice consonance with "compiler".

-mike

-- 
Michael McCracken
UCSD CSE PhD Candidate
research: http://www.cse.ucsd.edu/~mmccrack/
misc: http://michael-mccracken.net/wp/




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