The New Democratic Party will keep its name, for now, as leader Jack Layton wrapped up the party's annual convention by urging delegates to "build a better world" for the next generation of Canadians.

Delegates were expected to vote Sunday on a resolution that would have kick-started consultations on dropping the word "New" from the party's name.

The resolution was to be the sixth proposed during a one-hour period. However, time ran out before the resolution could be brought forward.

It appears the resolution was held up by delegates, who took time asking a number of questions about other resolutions.

According to CTV's Graham Richardson, officials who work with NDP Leader Jack Layton said the media had become fixated on the name-change issue, which was proposed by delegates, not the leader himself.

"The leader's office says they didn't have any opinion on the change of the name for the party, that this was just a riding association thing," Richardson told CTV News Channel on Sunday afternoon. "Five riding associations came up with it and, they say in emails to me, that they're fine with the way things played out."

Layton himself told CTV News Channel that party delegates likely wanted to discuss more pressing issues.

"At the end of the day, the issue of changing the name didn't have the same level of priority," Layton said.

But delegate Jennifer Hassum, 26, said she doesn't like the New Democratic Party name, and hopes a name change will be debated at a future convention.

"I love the idea that we're looking at and reviewing our name, but at the same time, I think there's better debates that can be had like ... situating ourselves in the political context of today and the future," Hassum told The Canadian Press.

Other delegates had pointed out before the convention that an acronym for a Democratic Party could have proved awkward in Quebec. The French initials would be PD, would sound like "pede," a derogatory term for a homosexual.

Other critics have suggested that the NDP hoped to align itself more closely with Democrats in the United States.

Convention delegate Mariano Klimowicz, a co-author of the name-change resolution, denied the claim, and said dropping "New" from the party's name would help Canadians better understand the party's platform.

"We're very, very distinct from the Democratic party in the United States," said Klimowicz, 51. "We're more socialist-minded, more program-minded."

Despite attempts to downplay the link between the two parties, two high-ranking members of U.S. President Barack Obama's campaign team -- organizer Marshall Ganz and campaign chief operating officer Betsy Myers -- addressed the convention on Saturday.

This is not the first time that delegates have faced a debate about the party's name.

The party was first known as the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation when it was founded in Calgary in 1932. At that time, it was largely made up of socialist and labour supporters looking for new economic policies during the Great Depression.

Members agreed to the party's current name in 1962.

At the end of the convention, Layton told delegates he is buoyed by inroads the party has made in both Western and Atlantic Canada, and NDP Premier Darrell Dexter's victory in Nova Scotia.

"We have got to build a better world for the next generation and the generation after that," Layton said during his closing speech. "So I hope you're leaving here as I am, with a new vision of the kind of Canada that New Democrats want. A Canada whose government has as its priority the serving of all Canadians, a government that works with us and not against us, a government on your side."

Layton also used his speech to lash out at the Stephen Harper government's handling of the economic crisis, saying too many Canadians are suffering financial hardship.

He also criticized how the Tories handled the case of Suaad Hagi Mohamud, the Somalia-born Toronto woman who was branded an impostor and stranded in Kenya for three months when officials there said she didn't match her passport photo.

The Canadian High Commission in Kenya agreed with local officials and voided her passport before DNA tests proved her identity.

With files from The Canadian Press