Netscape and its marketing department... at the time their browser scripting language saw the lights of the day, they thought about names such as LiveScript, etc. Java was hot
word those days (actually still is), so some genius from that department thought it's a good idea to stick the hot word to the name of the new scripting language... and presto! Milions of confused and misguided people fell into thinking that JavaScript is a small Java! Confusing job well done! There are people that still fall for that...
Actually the real intention was probably to describe the object orientation of the new scripting language beside marketing reasons... that is probably why names like CScript etc. were not suitable... come to think of it, there actually is a c-oriented scripting language but its name doesn't express its c-like nature... it's called PHP...
Of course, Microsoft came out with its own version of JavaScript, called JScript, and browser war with Netscape ensued... and JScript prevailed...
Nice little bedtime story
Good night