Why is the standard for implementations of the AES algorithm called "Rijndael"?
Is it simply a name? Or has it some kind of meaning?
I tried googling this one, but without any helpful results.
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3I don't see what this has to do with our subject matter on EL&U. You're asking about the history of cryptography.– TRiGCommented Jan 14, 2014 at 21:49
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1Flagged to close. This question could have been answered with a quick google search and isn't relevant to the EL&U subject matter.– DocCommented Jan 14, 2014 at 22:04
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5This question appears to be off-topic because it is not about English.– FumbleFingersCommented Jan 14, 2014 at 22:06
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It has been suggested to move this question to IT Security.SE. I have no idea if that makes sense, but I am happy to migrate it if you want.– Kit Z. Fox ♦Commented Jan 14, 2014 at 22:53
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meta: Yes, this ought to be migrated to an appropriate IT Q&A.– KrisCommented Jan 15, 2014 at 7:24
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2 Answers
According to Wikipedia's entry on the Advanced Encryption Standard:
The name Rijndael (Dutch pronunciation: [ˈrɛindaːl]) is a play on the names of the two inventors (Joan Daemen and Vincent Rijmen).
This was one google search away, and was in the last paragraph of the introduction to the article, which was the first google result when searching for Rijndael.
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1And for me the Google preview of the first result had “It is based on the Rijndael cipher developed by two Belgian cryptographers, Joan Daemen and Vincent Rijmen [...]”. From there, one might be able to guess ;) Commented Jan 14, 2014 at 22:19
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@CarstenSchultz Very true, I didn't even notice that in my search, lol.– DocCommented Jan 14, 2014 at 22:22
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2As Visitor says below, to a Dutch speaker this would mean "Rhine valley", spelled in a (faux) archaic way. Commented Jan 14, 2014 at 23:39
It has its origins in Dutch. 'Rijn' is the Dutch spelling of the river Rhine. 'Dael', or in modern spelling 'Dal', means valley.
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While some of this may be true, it has nothing directly to do with the Rijndael AES algorithm, which is what the question was about.– DocCommented Jan 14, 2014 at 22:01
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1@Doc, there's the 'Or has it some kind of meaning?' part! See also, Cerberus' comment. Look up dale in an English dictionary as well.– KrisCommented Jan 15, 2014 at 7:18
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@Kris Yes, except it doesn't have any meaning beyond the name of the inventors. The fact that the inventor's names are similar is coincidence. That's like if I named a program after 'Doc' because it's my name and you claimed it's meaning was something to do with doctors.– DocCommented Jan 15, 2014 at 14:40
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3So far, that has only been affirmed by Wikipedia, which may not be correct. It may well be that they decided to merge their names that way precisely because it has a meaning. If the inventors are Dutch, they would be well aware of the meaning of the resulting word. Even if the inventors of the word had no idea it could mean something, it could still be said to have meaning. I don't see a problem with this answer, but of course the question is not for EL&U anyway.– nxxCommented Jan 15, 2014 at 14:57
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@Doc if I named a program after 'Doc' because it's my name -- you'd certainly think twice before naming your invention Doc, knowing what it means and what it could imply to the reader, right? :)– KrisCommented Jan 16, 2014 at 5:47