Usando o Google, me deparei com este Biografia de Martin Nodell :
Nodell was inspired by the Green Lantern idea by waiting for a New York subway, and he saw a train operator waving a lantern with a green light. According to USA Today, “Nodell imagined a young engineer, Alan Scott, a train crash survivor who discovers in the debris an ancient lantern forged from a green meteor. Scott constructs a ring from the lamp that gives him super powers and becomes a crime fighter.”
In a 2000 interview with Bill Black, editor and publisher of AC Comics, Nodell said, “I picked out the name from the train man on the tracks who was waving a lantern, going from red to green…green meant go and I decided that was it."