How 5 Popular Candy Bars Got Their Names

by James Hunt

You’ve probably eaten one of the iconic candy bars in this list—but have you ever wondered where their memorable names originated? Many of the world’s favorite candy brands, like Kit Kat, M&Ms, and PEZ, don’t really describe what’s inside their colorful wrappers. Others—like Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups—are extremely literal.

Let’s take a brief stroll down the etymological candy aisle and discover how the below confections got named.

1. Kit Kat
2. Toblerone
3. Milky Way
4. Snickers
5. Twix

Kit Kat

First produced in 1935 as Rowntree’s Chocolate Crisp, the Kit Kat received its modern name in 1937 when the milk chocolate-covered wafers began to be marketed as the Kit Kat Chocolate Crisp. The origin of Kit Kat is apocryphal, but it’s widely believed to be a reference to the famous Kit Cat Club, a 1920s jazz nightclub in London’s West End that was one of the city’s most popular social spots before World War II.

The nightclub took its moniker from the Kit-Cat Club, a political society formed in the early 1700s and named for the man who owned the tavern where meetings were held—Christopher Catling, a.k.a. Kit Cat. That gives Kit Kat—the candy bar—a pretty impressive lineage.

Toblerone

Toblerone, first sold in 1908, is a triangular milk chocolate bar containing nougat, almonds, and honey. The shape is meant to resemble the Matterhorn, a pyramidal Alpine peak on the border of Switzerland and Italy. A less-commonly recounted origin of the shape is that it was prompted by a pyramid of dancers from the Folies Bergères cabaret hall.

The name, however, definitely originates with its manufacturer, Swiss chocolatier Theodor Tobler. Toblerone is a portmanteau of Tobler’s surname and the Italian dessert torrone, a type of nougat containing honey, sugar, and nuts that forms the inspiration for the chocolate bar.

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Milky Way

Introduced in 1923, the Milky Way was both inspired by and named after a popular malted shake of the era. The intention was that the candy bar—the first-ever filled chocolate bar, containing nougat and caramel—would replicate the flavors and experience of drinking the milkshake.

Snickers

The Snickers bar, introduced in 1930, was the Mars Company’s follow-up to the Milky Way. Franklin Mars named the chocolate, caramel, and peanut confection after his wife’s favorite racehorse. Unfortunately, the horse died two months before the product came to market.

Twix

The true origin of Twix’s name is shrouded in mystery—much like the way its cookies and caramel filling are shrouded in milk chocolate. The product originated in the UK as the Raider candy bar in 1967. Early ad campaigns in Britain and the U.S. emphasized the word mix, so it might be that Twix is a portmanteau of twin and mix or twin and stix, referring to its pair of bars per package. One thing we do know: The Raider bar was definitely rebranded as Twix for the U.S. market in 1979.

A version of this story originally ran in 2016; it has been updated for 2025.