The following excerpt from Ethernet: The Definitive Guide (O’Reilly Media, 2014), explains how Ethernet got its name:
“In late 1972, Metcalfe and his Xerox PARC colleagues developed the first experimental
“Ethernet” network system to interconnect Xerox Altos to one another, and to servers
and laser printers. The signal clock for the experimental interface was derived from the
Alto’s system clock, resulting in a data transmission rate on the experimental Ethernet
of 2.94 Mb/s.
Metcalfe’s first experimental network was called the Alto Aloha Network. In 1973, Metcalfe
changed the name to “Ethernet,” to make it clear that the system could support any
computer‚ not just Altos‚ and to point out that his new network mechanisms had evolved
well beyond the Aloha system. He chose to base the name on the word “ether” as a way
of describing an essential feature of the system: the physical medium (i.e., a cable) carries
bits to all stations, much the same way that the old “luminiferous ether” was once
thought to propagate electromagnetic waves through space. Thus, Ethernet was born.” (p. 5)