i doubt there is a fully satisfactory answer. dd was a jab at IBM JCL.
Several later commands were derived from earlier ones, like sed and
tar. And awk ...

I think the one that needs more explaining is grep. If brevity were
the sole criterion, it could have been shorter.

On Sun, Sep 15, 2024 at 5:49 PM Noel Chiappa <jnc@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> wrote:
>
>     > From: Rik Farrow <rik@rikfarrow.com>
>
>     > Was the brevity typical of Unix command names a function of the tiny
>     > disk and memory available? Or more a function of having a Teletype 33
>     > for input?
>
> I'm not sure the answer was ever written down (e.g. in a memo); we will
> probably have to rely on memory - and memories that far back are now fairly
> thin on the ground by now. Perhaps Mr. McIlroy (or Mr. Thompson, if we're
> _really_ lucky) will humor us? :-)
>
>
> I have the impression that some of the names are _possibly_ inherited from
> Multics (which the early Unicians all used before Unix existed) - but maybe
> not. The command to list a directory, on Multics, is 'ls' (but see below) -
> but the Multics qcommand to remove a file is 'del' (not 'rm'); and change working
> directory is 'cwd'. So maybe ls' is just chance?
>
> Multics had a 'feature' where a segment (file) could have additional names (to
> the main name), and this is used to add short aliases to many commands, so the
> 'base name'' for the directory list command is 'list'; 'ls' is a short
> alias. A list of Multics commands (with short forms) is available here:
>
>   https://www.multicians.org/multics-commands.html
>
> I'm not sure how early that alias mechanism came in, though; my copy of
> "Introduction to Multics" (February, 1974) doesn't have short names (or, at
> least, it doesn't use them).
>
>
> It won't have anything to do with disk and memory. Having used a Teletype, it
>  would take noticeably longer to type in a longer name! It's also more effort
>  and time. I would expect those are the reasons for the short names.
>
>         Noel