Nah it actually came from the Japanese 2chFrom what I understand 4Chan is short for channel 4. Maybe younger people don't know this but in the US depending on what part of the country you're from, channels 3 or 4 on the TV set were channels that weren't used for some reason. If you had an early video game console, you would have to go to channel 3 where I live to play console games using a switch connected on your TV. In this context I guess 4Chan is a play on being an alternative channel.