... but I did propose that the neutron and proton and the related baryons were composed, roughly speaking, of three quarks each, and that the quarks were the fundamental entities, they are analogous to the electron, and that the neutron, proton and so on were not elementary. The word I had first as a sound, "quark". It might have been spelled K-W-O-R-K, for example. But then I thought it was the right sound for the fundamental constituents of nuclei. Sounds, sounds good.
9 December 2001 interview with the Nobel Institute
Murray Gell-Mann (proposed "strangeness" & named "quarks")