How did the term BOOTING come from

  A difficulty faced by even the earliest systems was initial startup. The CPU could only excute the program in the main memory which is volatile. Thus, the problem was how to get a program into the main memory when the power was turned on.
  The solution of the problem has been described by a metaphor--a person attempting to pull himself up by his own shoe laces or boot straps. Thus, initializing a system after power is turned on was wildly termed bootstraping and later simplely booting.