What is the meaning of core duo

"Core 2" is the second generation of the Intel "Core" series of processors. The lineage goes like this:

Pentium
Pentium 2 thru 4
Core
Core 2
Core i3/i5/i7

"Core 2" is one of the stupidest names I've seen specifically because it sounds like it's might be a dual-core CPU, but in fact that's not the case. "Core 2" refers to the architecture, not to the number of cores.

But "Core 2 Duo" IS in fact a dual-core version of the "Core 2" architecture. The "Duo" refers to a dual-core CPU chip, while "Quad" refers to a chip with four cores.