The name is unfortunate, especially when the documentation sometimes omits to capitalize "Loop", which introduces even more confusion than there already is.
The name is unfortunate indeed. There were languages like LOOPS (Lisp Object Oriented Programming System) which evolved into CLOS. Common Lisp loop macro is a kind of special DSL of its own. While the oldest LOOP language may be from 1967 article by Meyer and Ritchie (DMR as in UNIX), a kind of mini language for computation of primitive recursive functions and dealing with computational complexity.
