What's so confusing about the naming scheme? They're just following the naming scheme of their Pentium line.
Core is the microarchitecture being used in these new processors, and that's what Intel are calling these now. So instead of calling them Pentium, they're calling them Core. Pretty simple, right?
The number 2 just refers to the generation, like Pentium II, Pentium III, and Pentium 4.
Duo refers to how many cores the processor has. In this case, it has two cores.
So, Core 2 Duo is a processor that uses the Core microarchitecture, is the second generation of the Core processor (think Pentium II) and has two processor cores.
If it was a Core 2 Solo it would be a processor that uses the Core microarchitecture, is the second generation of the Core processor, and has only one processing core.
For example, when/if Intel puts out quad core chips and they stick to this naming scheme, they'll probably call the first generation Core Quad.... the second generation would be called Core 2 Quad... etc.
The 3rd generation of the Core chip would be called Core 3. If it's a duo core chip, it'll be Core 3 Duo. If it's a single core chip, it will be Core 3 Solo. If it's a quad core chip, it'll be Core 3 Quad.
Not so confusing now is it?
