Is that really true though? As I understood it JavaScript was mainly adopted because Java was popular at the time. JavaScript originally shipped as LiveScript, and they changed it to JavaScript later. Here is a nice quote on it from Brendan Eich:
“The name JavaScript was chosen when Java was hot, and we were doing LiveConnect to hook up JS to Java applets.”
Here is one from David Flanagan:
“JavaScript was originally developed under the name Mocha… It was renamed JavaScript in a co-marketing deal between Netscape and Sun Microsystems.”
The name change to JavaScript, via a trademark license from Sun to Netscape, was on Dec. 4, 1995 -- still within the Netscape 2.0 beta period. There was no stable release of Netscape launched with LiveScript but not JavaScript support.
I liked how Bill Joy signed "Founder" and seemed to go against others at Sun.
I did not want LiveScript, and it too was under trademark threat. Mocha seemed to me more defensible, but Netscape Marketing wanted LiveScript or (if they could get Sun to agree) JavaScript. Upper management definitely wanted the Java- based name.