'alanyl' originates from 'alanine', specifically the word 'alanin', where 'alan-' referred to the amino acid and '-yl' is a suffix used in chemistry to denote a radical or residue.

'alanin' transformed into the modern English word 'alanyl' through the addition of the '-yl' suffix.

Initially, it referred to the amino acid alanine, but over time it evolved to specifically denote the radical or residue form in peptides.