It's very likely that the 44.1 kHz rate comes from the PCM adaptors that were designed to take PCM audio and convert it to something that a video tape recorder would accept.

I watched a YouTube a few months ago about these adaptors and the presenter did the calculations showing how the 44.1 kHz 16-bit sample rate lines up with the video fields. There was a valid engineering reason for this sampling rate.

However, the stories about one of the Sony executives having a particular piece of music in mind are true, and have to do with the diameter of the disk being enlarged compared to what Philips originally had in mind. By that time the bitrate was already decided.

I still agree that 48 kHz is a better choice today, especially after reading this paper.