Where Does the Name Nylon Originate?

Q.

Was NYLON named after New York and London? If so - why?

A.

The story that the name nylon came from combining the names of New York and London has been around for a long time – almost as long as nylon itself. It’s a good tale, and one with possibly even a little romance to it. Unfortunately, however, it’s not true.

Nylon was first produced in 1935 (on February 28, if you want to be precise) by a chemist working for DuPont named Wallace Carothers. A silky thermoplastic material, there is nothing organic about nylon – it’s completely man-made. First used to replace real bristles in toothbrushes, it found its great fame as a substitute for silk stockings, so much so that nylons became the generic term.

The uses for nylon multiplied, and now it can be found in so many things, from carpets to tyres. It’s become so universal that it can sometimes seem hard to believe there was a world before it, and it was especially useful during World War II, where there was a shortage of natural materials.

As to the word nylon, it’s actually quite arbitrary. DuPont itself has stated that originally the name was intended to be No-Run (that’s run as in the sense of the compound chain of the substance unravelling), but at the time there was no real justification for the claim, so it needed to be changed. It was the discoverer, Carothers, who was responsible for that. He changed the name, letter by letter, until finally the management at DuPont accept what he’d come up with – which was nylon. Unfortunately, he reportedly committed suicide prior to the name being finalised, and actually wasn’t even working on nylon in his last year of life, which casts some doubt on the veracity of that.

That, at least, was the explanation in 1978. Back in 1940 it was a little different. In that year, the company’s John W. Eckelberry stated that the first three letters – the nyl – had no read meaning at all, whilst the on suffix was inspired by that used in other fibres.

So there are two contrasting, and both official, stories. But neither mention nylon as coming from NY and London.

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