The portmanteau NYLON, also spelled NYLon or, less often, NY-Lon, starts with the concept of New York City, USA, and London, England, as twin cities — the financial and cultural capitals of the Anglo-American 'world' — and takes the concept a step further, treating the two cities as "a single city separated by an ocean". There is a community of high-earning professionals who commute with extreme frequency — sometimes several days in a given week — between New York and London on its particular transatlantic air route. As a result, the term "NYLon" can be used either to refer in a sense to the concept of the two cities being 'intertwined' or easily traversable generally, or in a more micro form, as a specific noun — as in "s/he is a NYLon" to refer to a person who travels extensively between the two and treats each as equal senses of "home".

Nylon is a generic designation for a family of synthetic polymers, more specifically aliphatic or semi-aromatic polyamides. They can be melt-processed into fibers, films or shapes. The first example of nylon (nylon 66) was produced on February 28, 1935, by Wallace Carothers at DuPont's research facility at the DuPont Experimental Station. Nylon polymers have found significant commercial applications in fibers (apparel, flooring and rubber reinforcement), in shapes (molded parts for cars, electrical equipment, etc.), and in films (mostly for food packaging)