The History of Foo and Bar

Where did they came from?

Any computer science’s graduate knows that Foo and Bar are the stars of programming examples, object oriented demos and lecturer’s slides.
But where did they came from? When? And who gave them these funny names?

In many exercises these star as variable names. However some people think that the origin of Foo and Bar are in the US military during the WWII era. It stands as the acronym for “Fucked Up Beyond All Repair”, “Fucked Up Beyond Any Recognition” or the most common translation “Fucked Up Beyond All Recognition.”

Other speculations are a transformation of a German word, and other theories exist as well.

Actually, no one really knows what is the origin.

Do you?