I don't think this is correct - coq does not have a /u/ sound in /cok/ but coke is pronounced /couk/ (sorry for the completely unortodox phonetic language).
Well, it entirely depends where you live. The GP's comment make perfect sense where I am, and seem a good explanation, but sure, depends on how you pronounce 'coke'!
Not trying to be childish, but let's be honest, this is a horrible name if you are not a native english speaker. I just hear giggles every time somebody mentions this name...
For the record, French speakers also have at first a hard time with the "bit" word that is usually pronounced at the very beginning of any introductory CS class. Indeed, it has the same figurative meaning as "cock" in English. Worse, you can find it in compounds such as "32-bit" or "bitfield", so try figure out the evocative power of those expressions.
Usually and fortunately though, the average person simply grows up and stops giggling at the word quite quickly. And so do Coq users.
Define "the authors". Gérard Huet, who wrote the software almost 35 years ago was definitely aware of the meaning, and indeed this was done in order to overtly piss off the prudish Amercians.
In the current core development team, I think it is reasonable to say that most people range somewhere on a scale from "don't care" to "mildly annoyed". Amongst the annoyed group, some actually advocate for a change of name.
This is a horrible name even for native english speakers. I still have to coach people not to giggle whenever I bring up LaTeX - unless it's exclusively vocally in which case the "lah-TECH" puts their mind elsewhere.
I kinda miss those times where you could talk about those Thinkpad clits at work and no one would bat an eye. The degree of puritanism of the new generation is a bit terrifying.
I don't think it's puritanism, it's just keeping things separate. In an office we're all there to work and not get embroiled in relationship drama - so calling that nub a clit is just unnecessarily bringing sex into things.
... in some (BDSM fahig?) circles? I know it's used there, but there are quite a lot of other things I think of before that. And some colleagues I just asked as well.
Coq means a rooster in French that is not a usual name for theorem prover by itself. Therefore Coq developers should have thought that it is at least an interesting (and more likely, funny) idea to name it after an animal, much like CHICKEN Scheme.