Read the thread. This means that the acronym was not invented after the name was established.
Historically very different, Navy blows stuff up from a distance and repairs damage of a floating platform. They act as a small part of a much bigger unit, so to speak.
As part of this larger unit, the Seal team section is a section to handle the stuff that doesn’t fit into the core activity.
IIRC, they were originally called Frogmen, then UDT, then SEALS.
That’s not what a backronym is. You’re thinking of folk etymology, where an origin is made up after the word exists. A backronym is just a phrase constructed for the specific purpose of coming up with a cool acronym. It’s when you decide what you want your name to be and then you make up a phrase to justify it. Like, the gym has a program called CHISEL which they claim is “Creating Huge Increases in Strength and Endurance Levels”. Yeah, right, like they came up with the phrase and it just so happened to spell out a perfect word for a healthy, fit body. Or the Defense Advanced GPS Receiver just so happens to be pronounced “Dagger”.
Those are backronyms. There’s about a million of them in the military because, hey, cool names sell products. “SEALs” is one of them.
One slightly used SEAL Team for sale, please inquire within.
I’m sure they prefer the term, “Pre-Owned”.
And the first course they take is another acronym: BUD/s, which stands for “Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL”.
Pretty much what Chessic Sense said, although I wouldn’t go as far as declaring SEAL is a backronym, just that “it could be argued”.
Last week a screen capture was making the rounds. A news program intended to show the emblem of US Navy SEAL team 6. Instead, they showed the emblem of the fictional Maquis SEALS team 6.
Note the final S; I’m guessing it stands for “space” as this was from one of the Star Trek neverending spin-off serieses.
UDT was the precursor to the SEALs (although there was a time when both programs existed). The difference, IIRC, was that the UDTs job stopped at the shoreline (as in: they blew up stuff that was in the water, but didn’t go on land and shoot people).
Have to be careful with that – Disney is trying to trademark “SEAL Team 6” so they can sell products related to it: