NPR says the name “change” was due to the fact that they’re not exclusively about radio any more, with websites and whatnot. But I suspect, keeping in mind JJM’s wish that they’d call it “taxpayer-funded NPR,” that the word they want to obscure is not “radio” but “public” — every time they say their full name, everyone is reminded that they’re subsidized by our bankrupt treasury, possibly giving someone a dangerous idea about how to cut spending.

Changes to obscure an inconvenient element in a name are common. In addition to NARAL, consider that once the adjective in Association of Retarded Citizens became politically incorrect, the group changed its name to “Arc of the United States.” Once ZPG realized that achieving zero population growth in the United States meant restricting immigration, they dumped their name entirely, becoming Population Connection, but kept the nickname and the www.zpg.org web address.

And then there are funny examples, like the Wisconsin Tourism Federation, which had to change its name to the Tourism Federation of Wisconsin because the abbreviation had acquired a new meaning.