> But given the precedent set by itertools and math.factorial,
> perhaps you are right and we ought to stick to the longer name

I disagree.  Let's stick with comb() which is what SciPy uses.  It is tedious to write out combinations in a formula what includes other steps. Also, I really want to differentiate it from the existing combinations() in the itertools module (it is reasonably forseeable that the two will used together.