Almost 'Choo Choo': The Untold Naming History of Facebook's Metro Bundler
cnakazawa · x · 2026-08-05
A former Facebook engineer shared the interesting backstory behind naming the popular JavaScript bundler Metro. Originally called JSAppServer, the team faced an identity crisis when deploying it for Instagram web, prompting a rename.
- Disastrous Poll: An internal poll for transport-related names was hijacked, with the top-voted suggestion being a joke: "Choo Choo McChooface."
- Trademark Issues: They eventually favored "Metro" from a single-vote option. However, due to Microsoft's existing trademark for Metro UI, the legal team forced them to use metro-bundler.
- Reclaiming the Name: Years later, the author intercepted an approval request from another team to use the "Metro" name, successfully reclaiming it and finally dropping the "bundler" suffix.
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