Comment by btown

There's actually a fair amount of drama around why this is!

https://rwer.wordpress.com/2010/10/22/the-nobel-family-disso...

Apparently, when the Riksbank decided it wanted to publicly fund a prize for the category, the verbosity of the name of the prize was a concession to distance it from the other simply-named Nobel Prizes, funded by the family.

> What was the position of the Nobel family? Three days before the meeting of April 26, the then director of the Nobel Foundation, Nils Ståhle, met two members of the family and telephonically talked with a third one. Their position was that “it should not become like a sixth Nobel Prize”, but that if the economics prize could be kept clearly separate from the Nobel Prizes then it might be an acceptable idea.

> They obtained her written approval of the economics prize “under given conditions,” namely that the new prize in all official documents and statements should be kept separated from the Nobel prize, and called the “prize in economic science in memory of Alfred Nobel.” In a telephonic conversation with a nephew, Martha Nobel said that the whole thing was prearranged and impossible to oppose, so that one could only hope that they would keep their pledge that no confusion with the real Noble prize should occur.

> What has happened is an unparalleled example of successful trademark infringement. However, nobody in the world can prevent journalists, economists and the general public from talking about the “Nobel prize in economics,” with all its connotations.