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Origins of names · 8 of 25

Origins of names

Wiki comes from an airport shuttle

Did you know 'wiki' comes from a Honolulu airport shuttle?

· 23-sec read

On his first trip to Hawaii, Ward Cunningham was told by an airport counter agent to take the "wiki wiki" bus between terminals: wiki wiki means quick. In 1995 he named his quick-to-edit web software WikiWikiWeb because it was more fun to say than "QuickWeb". The CamelCase spelling was deliberate: it made the name itself a link.

Why it matters

Ward's CamelCase rule made links free to create, and cutting that friction is a big part of why wikis took off.

Sources

High confidence

Checked October 20, 2026.

  1. Correspondence on the Etymology of Wiki (Ward Cunningham, c2.com) c2.com
  2. March 25, 1995: First Wiki Makes Fast Work of Collaboration (Wired) wired.com