In the preface of Eilenberg-Mac Lane: Collected works, EML write (on p.ix/x): Category theory was thus born very quietly in 1945. ... It was only with Grothendieck's famous Tohoku paper in 1957 that the theory came into full bloom. Grothendieck already exploited, among other things, abelian categories. The term category derives form the ancient Greek verb kategoreo. Johannes ----- Mail original ----- De: "David Roberts" <droberts.65537@gmail.com> À: "categories@mta.ca list" <categories@mta.ca> Envoyé: Mercredi 10 Juillet 2019 14:01:16 Objet: categories: "First" use of 'Category theory' to describe our field Hi all, the (idle) question is: when did the phrase 'category theory' catch on for the field? Clearly it didn't leap from either of the heads of Eilenberg or Mac Lane full-grown, since they used the phrase 'General theory of natural equivalences'. There are the old 'Reports of the Midwest Category Seminar' lecture notes (the first in 1967), which hints that 'category theory' wasn't quite the name in use. Even more interesting: who was the first "category theorist", by that name? Answers referring to verifiable sources would be best. Thoughts? David David Roberts Webpage: https://ncatlab.org/nlab/show/David+Roberts Blog: https://thehighergeometer.wordpress.com [For admin and other information see: http://www.mta.ca/~cat-dist/ ] [For admin and other information see: http://www.mta.ca/~cat-dist/ ]