ALF stands for "Alien Life Form", so yeah, 'tis an acronym. His real name is Gordon Shumway, which we found out on the sitcom, and was expanded upon in his Saturday morning cartoon show, which detailed life with the Shumways on Melmac before it was destroyed. I wasn't surprised years later when I read Glenn Gordon Caron's bio (he was a staff writer for the sitcom) and he said the writers were all high when they wrote the show.