Actually "Surface RT" was the "simple" version given by the community, if you can believe that. Typically Microsoft, the official names were "Surface with Windows RT" and "Surface with Windows 8 Pro".
I think the idea was to have "one" device (even though there were actually two different devices, with very different hardware) with the name of Surface, but which came in two versions, one with Windows RT, and one with Windows 8 Pro. So they were telling people: "This is Surface with Windows RT...and this is Surface with Windows 8 Pro".
But yeah, a disaster. Their current names of Surface and Surface Pro may be simpler to use now, but it's actually more confusing for consumers, because this current naming implies Surface Pro is basically Surface, but with a few extra features. When in reality, they are very different. I think this confusion was meant on purpose, because they want people to believe that Windows RT is "just like regular Windows - but with fewer features". They are doing their customers a disservice by trying to trick them like this.
The whole RT thing sounds like a joke. Even on wikipedia there's a circular link collection on top of each of those articles, "WinRT, not to be confused with Windows RT, not to be confused with Windows Runtime, ..."
Btw, I just noticed that the old Surface is now known as PixelSense. Makes sense.
