The story
Developed by Henry B. Mann and Donald R. Whitney, who described it in a 1947 paper.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.
Mann-Whitney U test
Today it means: A nonparametric test of the null hypothesis that the probability that a randomly selected value from one population is less than a randomly selected value from a second population is equal to the probability of being greater. It can be used to investigate whether two independent samples were selected from populations having the same distribution. Full definition →