The word textonym is a blend of the word text (in its mobile phone use as both a verb and countable noun), and suffix -onym (from the Greek onoma meaning ‘name’, compare synonym, antonym etc). The verb use of text first appeared in 1999, gaining currency in British English partly because a year earlier it became possible to send messages between the four main mobile networks – Vodafone, Orange, O2 and T-Mobile. The noun text is of course hundreds of years older, dating back to the 14th century and based on Latin texere (meaning ‘weave’).