A recent NPR interview with one of Higgs' colleagues reveals more of the story:
SIEGEL: I want to ask you about this particle's nickname, the "God particle." What did Higgs, who I've read is an atheist, think about the nickname the "God particle"?
MARTIN: I'm sure – I actually haven't ever asked him this directly, but I'm sure he doesn't like it. Almost all particle physicists detest that name. It was actually Leon Lederman, who's a Nobel laureate, that came up with it. But he was trying to call it "that goddamn particle," and that wasn't allowed by the publishers so it became the "God particle." So the name stuck and I think it's fine because then people know what we're talking about. But secretly, all of us hate the name, the "God particle."
A reader adds:
Lederman's original manuscript was called "The Goddamn Particle" because it was so god-damned hard to find (it took another two decades after Lederman wrote the book for the LHC to find traces, although Fermilab had some lower-sigma signals a few years back).
The Dish 