> dd actually has two jobs: Convert and Copy. A post on comp.unix.misc (incorrectly) claimed that the intended name “cc” was taken by the C compiler, so the letters were shifted in the same way we ended up with a Window system called X. A more likely explanation is given in that thread as pointed out by Paweł and Bruce in the comments: the name, syntax and purpose is almost identical to the JCL “Dataset Definition” command found in 1960s IBM mainframes.
> dd actually has two jobs: Convert and Copy. A post on comp.unix.misc (incorrectly) claimed that the intended name “cc” was taken by the C compiler, so the letters were shifted in the same way we ended up with a Window system called X. A more likely explanation is given in that thread as pointed out by Paweł and Bruce in the comments: the name, syntax and purpose is almost identical to the JCL “Dataset Definition” command found in 1960s IBM mainframes.