How did Twitter get its name?

Answer 1

From the Twitter entry on Wikipedia, co-founder Jack Dorsey explains:

"We wanted to capture that in the name -- we wanted to capture that feeling: the physical sensation that you're buzzing your friend's pocket. It's like buzzing all over the world.

"So we did a bunch of name-storming, and we came up with the word 'twitch,' because the phone kind of vibrates when it moves. But 'twitch' is not a good product name because it doesn't bring up the right imagery.

"So we looked in the dictionary for words around it, and we came across the word 'twitter,' and it was just perfect. The definition was 'a short burst of inconsequential information,' and 'chirps from birds.'

"And that's exactly what the product was."

Answer 2

According to an interview with founder Jack Dorsey, Twitter was almost named Jitter or Twitch. When one of the creators looked up "twitch" in the dictionary, he found "twitter." Twitter was defined as "a short burst of inconsequential information, chirps from birds." That was what they were trying to accomplish with the short status updates, so they quickly agreed to buy the domain name twitter.com.