The name has a cool sound, but I think "grep" is only meaningful to people like us, not the mainstream that it targets. Still, create something useful, and the name doesn't matter as long as it's memorable and distinctive, as this is on all counts.
Little inside nods is what makes names like this particularly fun. For everyone else, it's just a catchy name.
We knew this was safe because it worked for YC.
Doesn't YC target people like us, as opposed to the mainstream?
I think that even for programmers, Y Combinator (the fixed point combinator not the company) is somewhat obscure.
I think he meant the name 'Y Combinator' is also similar. It has significant meaning to those who know what a Y-Combinator is. For others, it's just a cool name.
i originally misread it as "gremlin", those little devils that do annoying things when no one is looking.
I doubt the resemblance is a coincidence: greplin appears to be a portmanteau of grep and gremlin. (IMHO, it's a great name.)
I think it's impressive they actually managed to fit a real word in there, even if it's a hacker neologism.
How common is it for companies to not have names until that late?
Companies often change their names well after that, as their ideas change. OhLife only became OhLife 2 years after their Demo Day. Before that they were MeetingMix, and on Demo Day they were IDidWork.