Contrary to what
Webster 1913 thinks (just see what he thinks The
Web is...), daemons have little to do with demons, and a lot more to do with
gremlins. These were the
little people who made things
go in
Ancient Greece, whereas the gremlins were the little people who made things stop in the
RAF. Which is a
Bad Thing at any number of hundred
feet above
ground level.
The name now has more connotations with the computing world, however. But if you're using
DOOM as a system administration tool, you get to waste those daemons with a chainsaw, bloodied fist and plasma launcher.