No, it isn’t named after a snake. Guido van Rossum, the inventor of the most popular programming language today, named the language after a Comedy Show! “Monty Python’s Flying Circus”, to be specific. It’s a 70s comedy show that used to air on the BBC. To compare, the Monty Python show is like the ‘Friends’ of the 70s, with an 8.8 IMDb rating. It’s still on Netflix if you wish to watch.

But, you must be thinking ‘why it was named after a comedy show?’, the reason is Rossum happened to be reading published scripts of Monty Python’s show while he was implementing the language. Since he wanted the programming language to be unique and have a mysterious touch — he decided to go with the name ‘Python’. Probably, must be an Aha! moment.

Python’s official development started in the 1980s, but was released in 1991. Currently, it has a 30%, i.e. the highest, usage share among all the popular languages including C++, Java, JavaScript, PHP, etc.

One more fun fact: The examples in the documentation of the Python language have some of the comedy show references, like the one below:

Here, “Spam” and “Eggs” are references to a comedy sketch in one of the episodes. The characters are having breakfast over a shop and the menu involves processed meat in almost every item. The characters in the sketch end up reading the menu like:

Egg, sausage and bacon

Egg and spam

Egg, bacon, sausage and spam

Spam, bacon, sausage and spam

Spam, egg, spam, spam, bacon and spam

…. and it quickly converts into everyone singing it as a song.

Okay, one last fun fact and we are done for today: The word ‘Spam’ which we use today for electronic garbage is derived from this series and this episode. So much historical significance for a show. Haha