Why linspace was named like that in numpy?
A linear space. So in other words, from a straight line over an interval we take n samples.
I'm learning python and numpy. The docstring of numpy.linspace says

Return evenly spaced numbers over a specified interval.
Returns num evenly spaced samples, calculated over the interval
  [start, stop].

So I guess the "space" part of linspace means "space". But what does "lin" stand for?