As described in recent articles in the New York Times and CNN, the World Health Organization has decided to use the Greek letter Omicron (Ο, ο) as the name of the new variant rather than the next two letters in the Greek alphabet, Nu (Ν, ν) and Xi (Ξ, ξ). The primary reason for this deviation was to avoid confusion: the Greek letter “Nu” sounds too much like the English word “New”, and the Greek letter “Xi” is too similar to the Chinese surname Xi.
Read more over at The New York Times and CNN,