The story is that "something"-Tate sounded better than "Tate". It was purely made up. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashton-Tate

>Oh, boy. I stand corrected.
>
>So, who the hell was Ashton? And if he/she was a nobody, why was his/her name on the package? Hmm, could've been Tate's dog, I guess...
>
>Did Wayne Ratliff also work on the original dBase (or was it Vulcan) code at the Pasadena JPL?

Yes, Vulcan got its start at JPL