Question: Why is Godot called Godot?

Answer

Godot, the open-source game engine, was named after the play "Waiting for Godot" by Samuel Beckett. The play is famous for its themes of existentialism, where the main characters, Vladimir and Estragon, wait for the never-seen Godot, who ultimately never arrives. This reflects the developers' humor on the state of free and open game engines at the time – they were waiting for a good one to appear, much like the characters waited for Godot. Juan Linietsky, one of the creators of the Godot engine, has explained that just as Godot never appears in the play, they felt a truly free and open-source game engine was similarly elusive before Godot's own development.

The name also implies a degree of patience and anticipation which resonated with the developers' vision for their project. They sought to create an easy-to-use game engine that would be accessible to everyone, effectively ending the wait for a comprehensive, free tool for game development. By releasing Godot, they provided the community not just with another game engine, but one that is fully featured and user-friendly, thereby arriving in the landscape of game development tools in a way "Godot" from Beckett's play never did.