The official Python documentation explains ord(c) 

ord(c):
  Given a string representing one Unicode character, return an integer representing the Unicode code point of that character. For example, ord('a') returns the integer 97 and ord('€') (Euro sign) returns 8364. This is the inverse of chr().

It does not specify the meaning of ord, google searches are not helpful.
What's the origin of it?
Return the integer ordinal of a one-character string.
I took this from ord.doc in python command line. ord meaning ordinal of a one character.
What does the name of the ord() function stand for?