  The name "big bang" introduced by Fred Hoyle in 1949 is one of the most
successful scientific neologisms ever. How did the name originate and how was
it received by physicists and astronomers in the period leading up to the hot
big bang consensus model in the late 1960s? How did it reflect the meanings of
the big bang, a concept that predates the name by nearly two decades? The paper
gives a detailed account of names and concepts associated with finite-age
cosmological models from the 1920s to the 1970s. It turns out that Hoyle's
celebrated name has a richer and more surprising history than commonly assumed
and also that the literature on modern cosmology and its history includes many
common mistakes and errors. By following the story of "big bang" a new
dimension is added to the historical understanding of the emergence of modern
cosmology.
