About the name--Pogue and Schorr speculated in Mac Secrets 2nd Edition that Apple wanted the name to have a pseudo-Latin sound. (See page 919, 3rd paragraph)

Apple seemed to want the computers to have snob appeal--PowerBook sounded powerful, Centris and Quadra sounded pretty high tech, Classic had a nice ring to it, and Newton sounded like something intelligent. Compare that to other computer lines of the day--Compaq DeskPro and IBM PS/2 just don't have the same ring, nor do randomly numbered Dells/Gateways.