As far as I remember (maybe Arnar or Úlfar or another of the authors would have a different memory, though) we just wanted a “cool cookie” name. We knew about the -oon/-on distinction and liked the sound of -oon.
I view it as a mild plus that the confusion around the name has educated so many about confectionery taxonomies.
If it helps to think about the issue, we have a (free, online) book that manages this transition, so we've thought about this quite a bit and one co-author has been teaching a Pyret -> Python flow for several years. [https://dcic-world.org/2021-08-21/part_intro.html]
Various flavors of a course based on "An Incremental Approach to Compiler Construction" [1] have most or all materials free online, some with excellent notes. Taught at UCSD, Northeastern, Swarthmore College:
I view it as a mild plus that the confusion around the name has educated so many about confectionery taxonomies.