PrivacyProbe Blog
Why are website cookies called cookies?
Published Jul 2026 · 4 min read
TL;DR: Website cookies are called cookies because Lou Montulli, the inventor of the web cookie at Netscape, named them after the older computing term magic cookie. Montulli's account is the primary source for the name, while the IETF cookie specification is the authoritative source for how cookies work.
The origin of the name
Website cookies are called cookies because the name came from an older computing term: magic cookie. According to Lou Montulli, he chose the name because he had heard the term in computing before and thought it fit the idea of a session identifier that a browser could store and send back later.
That makes Montulli's explanation the closest thing to the horse's mouth on the naming origin.
How cookies work on the web
The technical side is separate from the name. The formal HTTP cookie specification explains that cookies let servers store state at the browser, helping websites maintain sessions over mostly stateless HTTP.
In practice, this is what lets sites remember that you are logged in, keep items in a cart, or save preferences between requests.
Name vs. function
So the short version is:
- Name origin: Montulli's explanation and the older magic cookie term.
- Technical behavior: Defined by HTTP cookie standards such as RFC 6265.
The name comes from historical computing language. The function is defined by web standards.