manual/include/why-is-it-called-ardour.html

  
<p>
  The name <dfn>"Ardour"</dfn> came from considerations of how to pronounce the acronym
  <abbr title="Hard Disk Recorder">HDR</abbr>. The most obvious attempt sounds
  like a vowelless "harder" and it then was then a short step to an unrelated
  but slightly homophonic word:
</p>
<blockquote>
  <p>
    <dfn>ardour</dfn> n 1: a feeling of strong eagerness (usually in favor of
    a person or cause); "they were imbued with a revolutionary ardor"; "he 
    felt a kind of religious zeal" [syn: ardor, elan, zeal]<br />
    2: intense feeling of love [syn: ardor]<br /> 
    3: feelings of great warmth and intensity; "he spoke with great ardor" 
    [syn: ardor, fervor, fervour, fervency, fire, fervidness]
  </p>
</blockquote>
<p>
  Given the work required to develop Ardour, and the personality of its
  primary author, the name seemed appropriate even without the vague
  relationship to HDR.
</p>
<p>
  Years later, another interpretation of "Ardour" appeared, this time based
  on listening to non-native English speakers attempt to pronounce the word.
  Rather than "Ardour", it became "Our DAW", which seemed poetically fitting
  for a Digital Audio Workstation whose source code and design belongs to a
  group of collaborators.
</p>