Why continue giving macOS a name?

[iStorm]

More of a hypothetical question... Why continue to give macOS a name? With macOS finally getting a new number, why not use that as an opportunity to drop the name and just call it macOS 11? Then in upcoming years/releases it could be called macOS 12, macOS 13, macOS 14, and so on. This would align macOS to have a similar naming scheme as their other OSes, and it's a lot easier to know which version is what rather than trying to remember the OS names and their order of release (Catalina, Mojave, High Sierra, Sierra, etc).

 

[konqerror]

The numbers are hard to remember, especially when they differ between iOS, watchOS and macOS. Windows' date-based names are the best in my opinion. 19H2 was the last version, 20H1 is the current version, 20H2 is the next.

 

[T'hain Esh Kelch]

PR and branding. It is easy to decide a theme for your promotional material.

 

[frou]

It has to have a name tacked on for as long as they insist on using the 0.1 yearly increment, otherwise the yearly release does not sound notable.

Also it's weird that macOS 11 vs iOS 14 implies that iOS is older. I'm sure there was someone inside the company advocating that this year's release should be called macOS 16/17 and then +1 yearly after that.