Haskell was standardized by a committee in 1990 and named after mathematician Haskell Curry.
The Haskell project began in 1987, when researchers agreed to create a common purely functional programming language for non-strict, or lazy, functional programming. The committee published the first Haskell language report in 1990. Haskell’s name honors Haskell Brooks Curry, whose work influenced combinatory logic and functional programming.
Haskell emphasizes mathematical-style functions, immutable data, strong static typing, and type inference. Its type-class system became especially influential and supports abstractions such as numeric operations, equality, and ordering. The language has been used in education, research, compilers, finance, and production software.
Haskell is sometimes confused with the Haskell Curry person’s first name being the language’s direct namesake in a personal sense. The name specifically reflects the mathematician’s surname. It is also not the same language as Miranda, an earlier functional language that influenced Haskell’s development.