An acronym is a kind of abbreviation. The word comes from Greek, meaning heads of names. Acronyms are usually made from the capitalised initials of the words it represents, for example FBI is an acronym for the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Occasionally, for special reasons, the second letter of a word is used, as in XML (eXtensible Markup Language), but this is deprecated. Sometimes more than one letter is included for a word, to avoid ambiguity or because they form an existing abbreviation, as in SACEUR (Supreme Allied Commander, Europe)
Contrary to what some sources say, acronyms do not have to be pronounceable words (for example FBI is spelled out when spoken, whereas NASA is not). Some sources use the word initialism to refer to the spelled acronyms.
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