Is it true that the word "nylon" comes from the names of the cities of New York and London?

It is widely believed that the name of the popular synthetic material is an abbreviation for New York and London. We checked whether this opinion is justified.

Nylon is a generic name for several varieties of synthetic fiber. In English it is called nylon, and this has given rise to an unusual etymology. Allegedly, the word consists of two parts: ny (an abbreviation for New York) and lon (an abbreviation for London). Users give this option "Live Journal" and portal "The Big Question", journalists "Komsomolskaya Pravda" and even the compilers "Dictionary of abbreviations and abbreviations". In the latter case, it is argued that the inventor of nylon decided to immortalize the cities in which he worked.

The fiber, which later became known as nylon, was synthesized in 1935 by the American chemist Wallace Carothers. In 1938, nylon was first used industrially - bristles for toothbrushes were made from it. The following year, visitors to the New York World's Fair were introduced to nylon stockings, perhaps the most famous product made from this material. On the first day of their sale in the USA, May 15, 1940, sold out almost 800,000 pairs.

Originally Carothers named his invention “fiber 66” because both of its components (adipic acid and hexamethylenediamine) had six carbon atoms. However, DuPont, in whose laboratory the researcher was working on the new fabric, realized that it needed a different name to sell its product. By 1938 there was compiled a list of four hundred options. One of the members of the committee that chose the name suggested the option norun - the English word run has the meaning of “arrow” (for example, on tights). Colleagues pointed out to him that products made from the new fiber are not immune to the lack of arrows, and they considered the “inverted” version - nuron, but the sound seemed too “medical”. Then there were the variants nulon and nilon, but in the case of the latter the pronunciation was not entirely clear. In the end, the committee settled on nylon.

The etymological version that nylon got its name in honor of American and English cities has long been established both in Russia and abroad. Already in 1952 this assumption presented in his etymological dictionary Ernst Weekley. However, six years later, Eric Partridge disputed this statement of his colleague. In his A Concise Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, he reported, who asked the manufacturers about the etymology of the word “nylon” - they said that the name was arbitrary and had nothing to do with New York and London.

Not true

What do our verdicts mean?

Read on the topic:

1. Matthew E. Hermes, Enough for One Lifetime: Wallace Carothers, Inventor of Nylon
2. Wallace Carothers and the Development of Nylon
3. https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/stocking-the-true-origin/