I strongly disagree with changing names and other things just for the sake of distancing Julia from domain-leading software. I think it should be just the opposite. Follow the convention, or what people most likely know, until a convincing argument to do otherwise is accepted. If there is a good reason, by all means change it.
Julia used to be much more matlab-like in appearance, which was a good thing. It still is often superficially python-like (eg comprehensions), which is also a good thing. Names and syntax have become less matlab-like because developers believed that the changes made Julia a better language, not because of an emotional response to matlab.
In fact one of the guidelines in designing Julia was to avoid innovative syntax. (This is written somewhere.)