Why do some .NET projects use an N-prefix in their name?

Question

Probably a stupid question, because I assume that N means ".NET", although I could be wrong. I am interested in when this naming convention was launched.

Examples:

NHibernate
NLog
NCover
NDepend
Ninject (I understand that this should be a ninja game, but it still works)

Answer 1

, ( N) /. F. e. NHibernate Hibernate Java. , N .net. NUnit , pyUnit, JUnit ..

Answer 2

, Apple "i".

.

Microsoft.NET.