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"Pretty Home Page" is not found in official PHP history. But I saw several people call PHP that way on the internet, and even in some books, teaching & publications:

Was "Pretty Home Page" just a funny nickname of PHP? Or was it once PHP's real name?

Someone has already asked this question in another forum, but received no conclusive answers: OFF-TOPIC Original PHP acronym

I looked at revision history of the Wikipedia page on PHP, but there are too many revisions. There's a tool called WikiBlame to find addition/removal, but I didn't find anything with it.

muru
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DungSaga
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    The wikipedia page on PHP says, right at the top, that its creator called it Personal Home Pages. Is there some reason to doubt that? – dave Jul 04 '21 at 21:16
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    5 minutes reading at php.net finds this document, which I assume to be written by Rasmus Lerdorf, in which the author says it was Personal Home Pages. – dave Jul 04 '21 at 21:24
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    Fun part, my memory does as well tell me Pretty HomePage as original name. Then again, a quick googling did bring up many hits, but not any good/authoritative reference – Raffzahn Jul 04 '21 at 22:06
  • @another-dave No doubt :) But there must be reason that people claim that it's not the original name. As I said, "Pretty Home Page" showed up in some books, teaching & publications. – DungSaga Jul 05 '21 at 03:55
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    Oh, interesting. I always knew it as PHP Hypertext Preprocessor. I guess I'm not old enough to be around the Pretty Home Page usage. – justhalf Jul 05 '21 at 08:34
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    PHP was never pretty and will never be :) I knew it as "Personal Hypertext Processor" I touched it aroun 2000/2001 (I think it was PHP 3.x) and even then nobody with at least some experience in other languages would have called PHP pretty – Peter Parker Jul 05 '21 at 10:29
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    @PeterParker Well, nor would I, then again, naming is usually done by parents - which may be a tiny bit biased in that :)) – Raffzahn Jul 05 '21 at 12:55
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    What, it isn't Paradaemonical Hellish Precipice? – Robert Columbia Jul 05 '21 at 14:52
  • I remember from the early days of php being told it stood for "Pete's Home Page", but I have no documentation on this. – NomadMaker Jul 05 '21 at 19:03
  • @robert-columbia Paradaemonical? is it a word? There's a metal band called Demonical. But I've never heard of paradaemonical :D – DungSaga Jul 06 '21 at 03:30
  • @NomadMaker I guess at that time many people don't know the real meaning of PHP, and Something Home Page is a good explanation. I looked up some abbreviation website and they gave definitions such as Private Home Page, Phucking Home Page, Professional Homepage Power ... – DungSaga Jul 06 '21 at 03:38
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    @robert-columbia I maintained a collection of funny and naughty name for PHP at https://gist.github.com/dungsaga/6cddda99be51f3c89ccd53b4aa0a878f for your entertainment. – DungSaga Jul 06 '21 at 03:38
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    I have done a couple of programming contracts using PHP during its early years, but have not used it now for about 20 years. I learned back then PHP stood for "Personal Home Page" and, in fact, don't recall ever hearing or reading that it means "Pretty Home Page" instead until now. Note Personal Home Page (PHP) states "In Web programming, Personal Home Page (PHP) is ...". – John Omielan Jul 06 '21 at 05:20
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    It was originally known as "PHP/FI" which was Personal Home Page Form Interpreter. Source: did webdev in 1994 when this tool was released and remember it. – Gaius Jul 06 '21 at 07:46
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    @JohnOmielan I think someone gave it a nickname just for fun and some other thought the nickname is the real name. – DungSaga Jul 06 '21 at 07:58
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    @Gaius I know the official name of PHP. But it's interesting to see Pretty Home Page showed up in books, presentations, reports, teaching ... – DungSaga Jul 06 '21 at 08:02
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    @Raffzahn It's the Mandela effect! – Galaxy Jul 06 '21 at 19:35
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    Everyone knows PHP actually stands for Programmable Hyperlinked Pasta. – leftaroundabout Jul 06 '21 at 21:02
  • @leftaroundabout ha ha, that's my favorite expansion for PHP :D Programmable Hyperlinked Pasta FTW – DungSaga Jul 07 '21 at 00:59
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    @Galaxy Mandela effect is a perfect word for this phenomenon :D false group memory – DungSaga Jul 07 '21 at 02:56
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    I suspect it was a derogatory usage that became more widespread. – Jon Custer Jul 07 '21 at 16:25

3 Answers3

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The 2013 3rd Edition of Programming PHP, by Kevin Tatroe, Peter Maclntyre and Rasmus Lerdorf, might be authoritative here, as Rasmus Lerdorf is the original creator or PHP. Page 2 and 3 show a copy of a 1995 Usenet posting by him with the subject

  • Announce: Personal Home Page Tools (PHP Tools)

presenting PHP Version 1.0 to comp.infosystems.www.authoring.cgi. Interestingly the full name is never mentioned before or after that within the book. Only PHP is used in all self referencing instances. The same is true for the second edition from 2006.

This is kind of an interesting find to me, as I would have as well answered 'Pretty Home Page' or 'Pretty Homepage Processor' when asked about the meaning of PHP. Right away, without any further thinking. Heck, even Pro-Linux mentioned 'Pretty Homepage' as first name in their review for 'Programming PHP'. At least I'm not the only one. It would be really interesting where this somewhat common theme stems from.

Raffzahn
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    Many people are familiar with PGP, which stands for "Pretty Good Privacy"... – grawity Jul 05 '21 at 05:33
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    @user1686 with that line of thought, PHP would stand for Pretty Horrible Privacy. Just kidding :D – DungSaga Jul 05 '21 at 08:00
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    @DungSaga Pretty Horrible to Program? – user253751 Jul 05 '21 at 10:39
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    There's also History of PHP at php.net, which one would call authorative, telling the same thing. However, origin of "Pretty Home Page" remains unanswered - I think the answer is that PHP has never really been about that but nobody really knows where that explanation has originated from. – eis Jul 05 '21 at 12:21
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    @user1686 Today maybe, but at the time PHP was made (1994), PGP was as well still in its infancy. But yeah, such transfers do happen, so maybe. – Raffzahn Jul 05 '21 at 12:22
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    @DungSaga Well, yeah. That and a few more. PHP is much like the C64, XML or Unicode: Either one likes it or doesn't want to touch it with a pair of pliers, there is no inbetween. – Raffzahn Jul 05 '21 at 12:24
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    It's not uncommon to create retronyms like this. EMACS has dozens of them. – Barmar Jul 05 '21 at 13:32
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    As does LISP: Lots of Irritating, Silly Parentheses – Barmar Jul 05 '21 at 13:32
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    "It would be really interesting where this somewhat common theme stems from" - That's exactly what the question was. I don't see how this post answers the question. – BlueRaja - Danny Pflughoeft Jul 05 '21 at 17:37
  • @BlueRaja-DannyPflughoeft Well, if that would b the (only) question, then the whole question would be off topic, as it's asking for opinions, isn't it ?:)) – Raffzahn Jul 05 '21 at 17:49
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    I think objectively we can agree that PHP has never been pretty. – J... Jul 05 '21 at 19:36
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    @BlueRaja-DannyPflughoeft This answer addresses one of the two questions:

    Was it once PHP's real name? According to this answer No

    The other question however is not answered so far. Why do some people say PHP was “Pretty Home Page”? Perhaps somebody else finds the answer:

     – gelonida Jul 05 '21 at 19:52
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    @Raffzahn No, there is nothing opinionated about the historical origin of an (apparently) common computing misnomer. – BlueRaja - Danny Pflughoeft Jul 05 '21 at 20:14
  • @user253751 Someone said that PHP means People Hate Perl because Rasmus Lerdorf doesn't like Perl – DungSaga Jul 06 '21 at 03:04
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    @blueraja-danny-pflughoeft The answer addressed 1 of the 2 questions I asked. The remaining one seems elusive. – DungSaga Jul 06 '21 at 03:19
  • @Raffzahn Most occurrences of Pretty Home Page are in the early years of 2000. Maybe it's the most popular name for PHP at a time when many people don't know what PHP stands for. My favorite name for PHP is Programmable Hyperlinked Pasta :) – DungSaga Jul 06 '21 at 03:26
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    @J... Pretty Horrible Perlclone? – jwenting Jul 06 '21 at 07:17
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A quick Google search for PHP returns the Wikipedia entry in the top results, where it states, "PHP originally stood for Personal Home Page", citing the php.net history page as its source:

PHP as it's known today is actually the successor to a product named PHP/FI. Created in 1994 by Rasmus Lerdorf, the very first incarnation of PHP was a simple set of Common Gateway Interface (CGI) binaries written in the C programming language. Originally used for tracking visits to his online resume, he named the suite of scripts "Personal Home Page Tools," more frequently referenced as "PHP Tools."

Although there are many references online to PHP as "Pretty Home Page" there does not seem to be a definitive reference but seems to be one of those things which has become "common knowledge", perhaps erroneously.

Mick
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    I was using PHP in 1999, at the time Rasmus was less involved in development but I do remember him mentioning on the mailing list that PHP does not stand for anything. He once called a pre-release compiler to parse preliminary code Personal Home Page Tools and that compiler evolved into PHP. But the PHP we know today has always had a name consisting of three uppercase consonants, but is itself not an acronym. – dotancohen Jul 06 '21 at 12:09
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Why do some people say PHP was “Pretty Home Page”?

You've compiled a list, but unfortunately you didn't share why the mentioned people said so.

In my past, no person known to me ever used that wording, and if so, I would have asked for more.

One person I remotely learned about recently, Raffzahn, has already shared that this was from memory (and you know how well human memory serves when it's about exact things).

Was it once PHP's real name?

No.

A resemblance I can see with "Personal Home Page Tools" which has the following background (this is also documented on older slides from Rasums if memory serves me well):

PHP as it's known today is actually the successor to a product named PHP/FI. Created in 1994 by Rasmus Lerdorf, the very first incarnation of PHP was a simple set of Common Gateway Interface (CGI) binaries written in the C programming language. Originally used for tracking visits to his online resume, he named the suite of scripts "Personal Home Page Tools," more frequently referenced as "PHP Tools."

But it's really long ago. As you're curious, this is the oldest references I could find in the Google Index dating back to 2001/2002 (published date of Google index: 18.04.2002):

7.3. Технологии серверного звена, используемые при разработке ВЕБ-систем. PHP (Pretty Home Page) – язык программирования динамических ВЕБ-сайтов: назначение, преимущества и недостатки, основные возможности, место в архитектуре ВЕБ-систем, синтаксис, приёмы программирования.

machine translation:

7.3 Server-tier technologies used in the development of Web-based systems. PHP (Pretty Home Page) - programming language for dynamic WEB-sites: purpose, Advantages and disadvantages, basic features, place in the architecture of WEB-systems, syntax, programming routines.

And I then can find quite some references in the Internet of German language.

hakre
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    I asked because I want to know why some people said that – DungSaga Jul 06 '21 at 17:41
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    In that case, the only real solution is to ask those people. We cannot read their minds. We cannot possibly know why they said what they said. Only they know. – Jörg W Mittag Jul 06 '21 at 18:52
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    I have to assume that Russian source is not original, especially since it gives an English-language acronym which would obviously not translate directly into Russian. Tracking down their source might be tricky though. – Darrel Hoffman Jul 07 '21 at 13:57
  • @DarrelHoffman: I was also under the impression that it could not be in the original language but this is speculation from my end. It is merely a beacon for the date in the Google index. I do not know how reliable that property is though. First time on archive.org is AUG 10, 2020 - 22:40:58 and Cloudflare serving the file tells last-modified: Thu, 31 Oct 2019 08:08:04 GMT with etag: W/"5dba9664-11112e". CreationDate from PDF: Sat Apr 27 00:08:45 2019 CEST. – hakre Jul 07 '21 at 15:44