Does a plugin’s “main” file need to be named the same as the folder containing it?

I remember – many moons ago – debugging a plugin that I was building for a very, very, long time. The only thing that fixed my issue (which I can’t remember for the life of me), was to name the plugins main file (the one with the plugin header) the exact same name as the plugins folder.

Since then, I have never named the plugin file anything other than the name of the folder. Is this necessary for any core functionality to work, or am I just being superstitious?

Simple answer, NO.

The plugin file can be named anything you want as long as at the very top of it you include the plugin Meta (name, description. …)