I have been using nimrod for a couple of weeks and I really like the language. When I don't have to use c++ for speed, I have been allowed to use Haskell for some projects. However, when I proposed nimrod for a small unimportant project, people laughed at me because of the name. In the US, nimrod has a somewhat negative connotation as you probably know. People around here think it is a joke. Then I read about nimrod having trouble getting or staying in wikpedia and I wondered if that was part of the reason. Anyways, I think nimrod might be an easier sell with a diferent name. I am still going to use it for personal projects as it is now my favorite imperative alternative to C/C++ (which I actually like).
EDIT: I just read another post where it said the name was currently being changed to Nim. I sometimes use the game Nim as an easy program to help learn a new language. I'll wait a while and see if I can sell the Nim programming language.
Being American as well, I also thought the name 'Nimrod' was chosen as a joke when I first found the language (something along the lines of "A language any nimrod can/should use"). Which I didn't like. Not only did I mistake it for a somewhat silly joke, "Nimrod" is also a bit of a mouth-full compared other languages like C, Rust, & Go.. and it didn't have the cool connotations of other longer names like Java, Ruby, or Python. Not that every other language has chosen awesome names either (PHP, Ada, Julia, etc...) nor is the name the most important part, obviously.
I do realize now that Araq's original meaning behind Nimrod and Babel was pretty clever. But, I still agree a name change is a good idea, for both cultural and phonetic related 'marketing' reasons.
The good news is that you've heard right: Nimrod is being renamed to Nim with the next release (and getting some aesthetics designs updates along with it). Which sounds awesome IMO. First impressions can be important, and hearing "nim" spoken aloud makes me think of "nimble" (small, fast, light... which is great association for any language, but especially for Nim which is actually all those things) and "mystery" or "power" (but perhaps that's just because I watched The Secret of NIMH often as a kid)... not that those any of those things are any kind of 'official' connections attempting to be drawn. Either way, "nim" just has a cool ring too it IMO, and It's amazing what simply removing half the word can do to my appreciation for it.