On: What do Unix command names stand for?

[jgtrosh]

I don't know if it's intentional, but it would tend to increase name collisions with shell variables.

[sverige → jgtrosh]

Plus all the good one character commands were already taken by the standard text editor, ed(1). It would have caused confusion.

[jwilk → jgtrosh]

But commands and variables are in different namespaces.