From the wikipedia link:

Marshall Rosenberg ... explains that the name was chosen to connect his work to the word "nonviolence" that was used by the peace movement, thus showing the ambition to create peace on the planet. Meanwhile, Marshall did not like that name since it described what NVC is not, rather than what NVC is. In fact, this goes against an important principle in the fourth component of NVC, i.e. requests. Specifically, in an NVC request, one should ask for what one does want, not what one doesn't want. Because of this, a number of alternative names have become common, most importantly giraffe language, compassionate communication or collaborative communication.

Ironic, indeed. It looks like it got that name from what Rosenberg was doing at the time, rather than an attribute of the system itself.

I really like the system. Knowing that it was part of a utopian counter-culture nonviolent peace movement makes it even better.