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Sonder=special, makes sense I guess.
I think the K in SLK was for Kompact, or as mentioned 2 posts up=kurz (short), meaning it is a small SL (sports light), which is why if you have a naturally aspirated engine it's still an SLK. If you have the compressor engine it says "Kompressor" on it, the Germans are pretty good at not duplicating their designation efforts. Same thing with the wagons, a 300 TD for example, will still say "turbodiesel" on it if that's what is under the hood, which is where I disagree with the list from dmorrison, the T is for touring (or however the Germans come up with the T equalling what we call a wagon), the D is for diesel in this case, or in the case of a gasser a 300 TE. I don't think they ever use a plain "T" for a turbocharger.
There was a confusing time when MB didn't seem to use a letter to designate a class. The 190 (201) was a classic example where the whole class was summarized by the 190 designation, for example the 190E 2.3, 190E 2.6, 190D 2.5, etc, made absolutely NO sense in todays MB designations, but the DO change their minds on this. I think this is the reverse of what happened to the E class. For a long time the "E" designation seemed to get associated with the middle of the road or "bread and butter" cars, especially here in the US where we want all the "DELuxe" stuff incl fuel injected engines. Although we saw it on other models like the 190 and the S class large cars, MB probably thought the "E" was so identified with the US Mercedes cars that they decided to apply this letter to the middle of the road/bread and butter cars. But in the 80's, you could also make the claim that there was a 300 class car (300E, 300D, oops, 260E which they later changed to 300E 2.6, then later the E300, E300 Diesel, E320, etc) see very confusing to see what they were trying to do. It seems like when even the Diesels were designated with an "E" (E300 Diesel) that MB really knew what they were going to do, and that is to have every chassis identified with a letter and not a number, and have the number change to fit the engine displacement, not like the 300E 2.6 or 2.8 (for example again). The 300E 2.8 was a 104 engine for those that have never heard of it. Hope this might help others understand, I worked on them through a very confusing time period, somewhat clearer now what is what, but I know it is interesting to know where the letters originate, what they mean. Again in the E class, I think it did originate from the original Einspritzer/Injected designation, but was actually carried over to the entire E Class because MB was associated with that letter designation for a long time. Later everyone seemed to forget that and thought up "Executive", but I digress. Does that make the C Class "CEO"?
Gilly
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