I thought I coined this term back in 1997-1998. Basically I figured it was a neat neologism and something I could say belonged to me. Spivak is already a real world surname in addition to being a fictitious gender on LambdaMOO. When I discovered that Ted Chiang used the term in The Story of Your Life, I was concerned about being sued for squatting on the domain. So far, so good.

heptapod remains the screen name for myself when I use the name Adrian Sterling.