Comment by nextaccountic

https://github.com/k3s-io/k3s#whats-with-the-name

> What's with the name?

> We wanted an installation of Kubernetes that was half the size in terms of memory footprint. Kubernetes is a 10 letter word stylized as k8s. So something half as big as Kubernetes would be a 5 letter word stylized as K3s. A '3' is also an '8' cut in half vertically. There is neither a long-form of K3s nor official pronunciation.

k3k is a play on k3s

but k3s is itself a play on words (k3s is supposed to be half the size of k8s, which stands for kubernetes)