I am curious about the history of the name, it seems to me that the 'kill' system call could have been named 'signal', and the 'signal' system call could have been named 'handle'.I was wondering whether the original use of the system call might have been simply to kill another process, and its usage was perhaps broadened to a more general signal-sending mechanism as the system developed - but this is speculation on my part.Does anyone know? 
Why is the UNIX system call kill named 'kill'?
kill;history