Ryan assembled their first Navion As in 1948 Navion A using parts originally manufactured for North American Aviation. As a result, there was a cross-over period for many standards.
Photo courtesy of Ryan Aeronautical Co.

Kerry Longford passed along the following comments from an interview he'd done while researching the Navion. "According to Lee Atwood, the President of NAA during the time of the development and manufacturing of the NAvion (plus he was also the reason for the P-51 being born) the plans for the NAvion were being drawn, but the aircraft had not been given a name. The letters NAvion were used on the old ticker tape by the New York Stock Exchange for North American (NA) Aviation (vion). I do not recall if he ever told me who first came up with the idea of using the abbreviation as a name, but he was very clear about how the airplane was named."

As Lee Atwood mentioned above, the Navion name was derived from the manufacturer's name. In fact, early sales materials highlighted the North American reference with the capitalization of the first two letters, making NAvion. Once the Ryan Aeronautical Corp. purchased the production rights, they dropped the North American reference and stopped the capitalization of the letter 'A'. Ryan planes are therefore Navions.

Former North American Aviation engineer Bob Reiland, and many others are adamant that NAVY-on (not nav-E-on) is the way it was pronounced at the North American factory, and is therefore the correct and only way to pronounce our beloved Navion's name.