text: user868: Since I have seen NCBI gene names were called "Entrez ID" for the first time, I am wondering where that comes from. Such a weird name!
  Does anybody know where that originates?
  My hypothesis is: in French, "entrez" can be translated to "please enter" (it is to enter in the imperative mood), so I'm guessing that might come from a past website/database in French where Entrez ID as in "Please enter the ID" was written in the search bar...
  But I could not find any reference... I cannot be the only one to ask himself this!
  
  user191: Update
  As pointed out by neilfws:
  According to Wikipedia and Practical bioinformatics by Michael Agostino: The name "Entrez" means "Come in!" in French (pronounced “on-tray”); it was chosen to reflect the spirit of welcoming the public to search the content.
  Old (probably incorrect) theory
  The first version of Entrez database was distributed by NCBI in 1991 (on CD-ROM). At that time, it consisted of nucleotide sequences, protein sequences and associated citations and abstracts from MEDLINE. 
  So even at the early stage it contained objects (entries) of very different types (sequences and abstracts). It is hard to find a word which will accurately and briefly describe all the types of data.
  While I don't know the correct answer and this is purely a speculation, my guess is that Entrez is an intentionally misspelled word "entries"; which accurately describes all the datatypes in the database.
  Using a misspelled word as a name is not uncommon, e.g. Google comes from misspelled "googol" and Flickr is a misspelled version of "flicker".
  
original_text: 868: <p>Since I have seen NCBI gene names were called "Entrez ID" for the first time, I am wondering where that comes from. Such a weird name!</p>
  
  <p>Does anybody know where that originates?</p>
  
  <p>My hypothesis is: in French, "entrez" can be translated to "please enter" (it is <code>to enter</code> in the imperative mood), so I'm guessing that might come from a past website/database in French where <code>Entrez ID</code> as in "Please enter the ID" was written in the search bar...</p>
  
  <p>But I could not find any reference... I cannot be the only one to ask himself this!</p>
   191: <h2>Update</h2>
  
  <p><a href="https://bioinformatics.stackexchange.com/questions/747/what-is-the-etymology-of-entrez-id/748#comment1340_747">As pointed out by neilfws</a>:</p>
  
  <p>According to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entrez" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Wikipedia</a> and Practical bioinformatics by Michael Agostino: The name "Entrez" means "Come in!" in French (pronounced “on-tray”); it was chosen to reflect the spirit of welcoming the public to search the content.</p>
  
  <h2>Old (probably incorrect) theory</h2>
  
  <p>The first version of Entrez database was <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK3837/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">distributed</a> by NCBI in 1991 (on CD-ROM). At that time, it consisted of nucleotide sequences, protein sequences and associated citations and abstracts from MEDLINE. </p>
  
  <p>So even at the early stage it contained objects (entries) of very different types (sequences and abstracts). It is hard to find a word which will accurately and briefly describe all the types of data.</p>
  
  <p>While I don't know the correct answer and this is purely a speculation, my guess is that Entrez is an intentionally misspelled word "entries"; which accurately describes all the datatypes in the database.</p>
  
  <p>Using a misspelled word as a name is not uncommon, e.g. Google comes from misspelled "googol" and Flickr is a misspelled version of "flicker".</p>
  