aren't there like dozens of similar things with pretty much the same name?
Maybe. Nothing else in Haskell named similarly, so it's not confusing.
also, accelerate was first published to Hackage in 2009 though so it isn't an especially new thing.
I think we ran out of `$NameFast` and `Fast$Name`, so people are just using plain verbs as names now, ideally as similar to something existing as possible, so you can attempt to steal their SEO and similar nifty "growth hacking" stuff.
Yes, and that’s fine. There are many notable Michael Jordans for instance. Maybe they could have taken the opportunity to call this one Haccelerate or Haskellerate or something like that but there is no reason for everything to have a distinct name. Context has sufficient namespacing.