I've heard it argued that "Molex" means any extruded-pin connector.

Like "Kleenex" means any facial tissue that is meant to be sneezed on.

(Both uses are wrong, but both also tend to promote efficient communication.)

And "JST" is used for any small white plastic connector with one side open showing the pins. "DuPont" means "Amphenol Mini-PV" or "Harwin M-20" or any other Mini-PV clone.

I work a lot with connectors and I'm not really sure what you mean by extruded pin connectors. Typically the terminals are formed from sheet, unless you're using fancy 38999-style pins, which I believe are machined (and very expensive).

I'm not sure what they meant, either. It's just a thing I've heard, verbatim.

I think "extruded" in this context comes from CAD terms, wherein: One builds the 2D cross-section of whatever complexity is entailed, and then mashes the "Extrude" button to add a third dimension to the shape.

I don't think the term, as-used, has anything at all to do with extrusion as a manufacturing process.

At a certain point, the genericized trademark is the correct term, like how aspirin is the correct term (only term, really) for a specific preparation of acetylsalicylic acid, even though it was a trademark of the Bayer corporation.

Yeah. The same thing also happened to heroin, which was also a trademark of Bayer. ;)

I’ve seen Molex’s part catalogue, and would expect that almost any connector could be a molex part ;)

Ah, so it does appear that Mate-n-Lok is a name that AMP/TE uses for some Molex-compatible products. For example, TE’s Micro Mate-n-Lok appears to be compatible with Molex’s Micro-Fit.