Many names of things on Linux are easy for me to remember if I know where they stem from (for example, cd standing for change directory).
The -R in pacman -R package_name obviously stands for "remove", but what does the -S stand for in pacman -S package_name? I guess it could be install, but that doesn't explain the capitalization, and it's also a weird letter to choose, as opposted to -I or some such.
It's short for "sync". From pacman(8):