Re: What were the original three names for the quarks?

The origional three quarks were Up(+2/3e), Down(-1/3e) and Strange(-1/3e). 
[With Charm, Truth (aka Top) and Beauty (aka Bottom) discovered later.]  
The original theory had baryons consisting of three quarks and mesons as 
quark-antiquark pairs.  (Each quark has an anti part that was the same mass 
but the opposite charge.)  Quick examples being: a proton = Up+Up+Down or 
+2/3e + +2/3e + -1/3e = e and a neutron = Down + Down + Up or -1/3e + -1/3e 
+ +2/3e = 0.  By virtue of these having three quarks, we say that protons 
and neutrons are types of baryons (more on this in a minute).  For the 
other example, a pi+ meson (also called a Pion) = Up + anti-Down or +2/3e + 
+1/3e = e.  It was known early on that there were Pions and Kaons in the 
Meson family.  It was thought that there were only protons and neutrons in 
the baryon family.  Oops.  

The funny historical part of this is that the quark model was only assumed 
to be a "book keeping" type arrangement and not actually meant to represent 
anything truly physical; i.e. it just made the equations work out properly. 
 When physicists got more energy for smashing protons into each other they 
discovered something unusual, they found three more (very short lived) 
Baryons: Lambda, Sigma and Xi.  Not only were these new Baryons strange, 
but they had a strangely different (but still -1/3e) quark in it and hence 
the name the Strange Quark.  At this point, the quark model gained a great 
deal of support as an actual physical model.  It is still the basis of 
subatomic physics (with a host of other bizarre particles to fill out the 
"subatomic zoo" of which there are now several hundred particles.  

Another historical footnote, the discoverer of the quark, Dr. Murray, 
Gell-Mann came up with the name "quark" from the novel "Finnegan's Wake" by 
James Joyce.  In the book, the barkeeper, H.C. Earwicker frequently says: 
"Three quarks for Muster Mark."  Since there were three quarks in each 
baryon and we knew about baryons first, that's where the name came from.  

Welcome to the "Zoo".  

Scott Kniffin
Senior Engineer
Orbital Sciences Corporation
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

Useful references: 
The Physics of the Atom, 4th edition by Wehr, Richards and Adair.  1985.

Classical and Modern Physics by Gettys, Keller and Skove. 1989.

(Ray Ladbury, a physicist, friend, and co-worker of mine that worked at 
Fermi Lab for his PhD.)