Yes, sometimes &#x27;car&#x27; and &#x27;cdr&#x27; are replaced with &#x27;first&#x27; and &#x27;rest&#x27; and are some of the first things you cover when learning the language, so I don&#x27;t think the names would really be hindering adoption for those that try to learn the language.  The benefits of car and cdr are that they can be composed: (caadr l) instead of (car (car (cdr l))) for example.