What's in a name?

One of the questions we get asked most is: "Where did the name Twilltac come from?"

The honest answer is a little less exciting than you might hope. But it's a story worth telling, if only so you know we suffered for it.

We've been here before

Over 25 years ago, the five of us who started Codeweavers spent a whole afternoon trying to name the business. We agonised for ages. In the end we chose a name we knew was already being used in the US, by a company called CodeWeavers that makes CrossOver. It wasn't ideal. And for all those years we only ever had a .net domain.

So when we got the team back together, I had one rule: this time we would have the .com.

Every good name is taken

It turns out that's quite a big ask. We tried names about speed, about agility, about moving quickly. We tried every automotive name we could think of. Every one had gone already, at Companies House, as a domain, or usually both.

The Costa summit

So, before we even had an office, we all met at the Costa round the corner from where our office is now. We swore we wouldn't leave until we had a name.

We came close. "Ittero" was a strong early favourite, until someone pointed out that in Italian it means jaundice. Other names that made the shortlist included LeanSoup, Vecade and, my personal favourite, Codeleavers.

Four hours and a lot of coffee later, we had nothing. So we went home.

And then there was Twilltac

Not long afterwards, Ben suggested we just go with Twilltac. By then we were so tired of the search that we all agreed. Of all the names we'd tried, it simply sounded the best, and we had a product to build, which mattered far more.

There's also a small nod to where we came from hidden in there. Twill is a type of woven fabric, so a little bit of the "weavers" in Codeweavers lives on in Twilltac.

I'll be honest: at the time I wasn't very happy about it. But two years on, the name has really grown on me. It's ours, nobody else has it, and yes, we have the .com.

So bear with us. Give it two years and you may well think it's a good name too.

Or maybe not. 😄

Roland Schaack
Co-founder, Twilltac