What package-management system gives .rpm packages their name?

The package-management system that gives `.rpm` packages their name is RPM Package Manager.

RPM is a free and open-source package-management system, and “RPM” is now a recursive acronym for “RPM Package Manager.” The same term is also used for the package format and the command-line program that installs, upgrades, queries, verifies, and removes packages. An `.rpm` file commonly contains compiled software plus metadata such as its version, architecture, dependencies, and file list.

RPM was created primarily for Linux distributions and was originally associated with Red Hat Linux. It was developed in 1997 by Erik Troan and Marc Ewing, building on earlier package-management work. The format later became central to distributions including Fedora, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, openSUSE, CentOS, AlmaLinux, and Oracle Linux.

RPM itself performs local package operations; higher-level tools such as DNF and Zypper add repository handling and dependency resolution. That distinction explains a common confusion: `dpkg` is the low-level package system used by Debian-family distributions, while Portage and Pacman are different package-management systems. RPM’s name refers directly to the `.rpm` format and its manager.