"-Bot" comes from "robot," "-tron" comes from "electron" or "neutron," but what is "-con" supposed to mean in Cybertronian nomenclature?
controller. you'll notice a lot of words in english that use con are around things that control. Constrict, Conserve. However I'd not put much through into it Megatron got his name because Megaton reminded them of the nuke and Tron at the time made things sound hightech so megaton, Tron... Megatron. A lot of the names are just rule of cool.
Do the nature of the Decepticons and their sub-groups, the -con suffix could be stand for con as in conman.
In my headcanon "-con" is a Cybertronian term meaning "expert" or "master," and therefore Decepticon means "master of deception."
Someone had the idea that Decepticon was a shortened version of "Deceptive Contact" and I've folded that into my own headcanon.
Decepti- comes from Decieve or Deception, Con comes from, well, con, as in to scam or deceive someone. At least, that's my best guess.
"con": to make someone believe something false, usually so that that person will give you their money or possession But overall, probably because it just sounded cool/right for bad guys to combine deception and con. I wouldn't overthink it.
I think it originates as Construct as some have said before. In universe, I've taken after @Suboptimal Optimus that it is a Cybertronian word for an association of people like a clan. The Decepticons started as a political party while Minicons show it doesn't necessarily mean aligned with the Decepticons.
Negative- i.e pros and cons,consequences. may also refer to convict. Most definitely a mix up of the word deception.
You'd think if the Decepticons were aware of the implied meaning of their collective team name, they'd live up to it more appropriately by calling themselves something else publicly. Calling you and your dudes what equates to "Deceptive con-men/convicts" would be a little on the nose. If Megatron really wanted all of Cybertron to believe that his ideals were on the side of justice and the good of their kind, he'd go with something else. Then again, he might just not give a damn. Or, even more likely, Decepticon just sounded cool to a bunch of dudes trying to get rich off of selling toys.
It would be interesting to get the creator's insight into it (I assume it was Budiansky?) just to get a feeling for what it was originally a setup for. I wouldn't be shocked if it's not so much that "con" was added and that it was possible that they just took "deception" and added a "c" to make it something new. I want to say that Megatron's name was simply "Megaton" (as in the power scale for bombs) at one point but they changed it. That said, I do like it for individual stories to be able to make them mean whatever fits their story. Personally, I like the "decept" part of the name to refer generally to their ability to transform and hide in plain sight (deception)- not to a lying or misleading ideology. Likewise, I don't really like the "con" to mean something inherently negative like convict, con-man, etc. IDW1 had the slogan for them as "You are being deceived" and you can kinda see how that ended up leading to Decepticon eventually. And without getting into IRL politics, there are a lot of movements who get named by outsiders (often intended as an insult) but the group takes the name and runs with it. I think the term "big bang" was even coined by a scientist who was mocking the theory at the time, but it stuck around.
Construct? Thus making Decepticons, “Deceptive constructs”. Like how Autobot means ‘Autonomous Robot’.
