The first prototype that D'Ascanio produced was nicknamed "Paperino" (the name Italians use for Donald Duck). This was due to the strange shape the scooter had.

 

When Piaggio rejected the prototype and asked D'Ascanio to redesign it he came back with a more aerodynamic shape. This bike emitted a high pitch buzzing noise and when Piaggio heard it for the first time he exclaimed it looked and sounded like a wasp (with it's bulbous tail end and narrower front end the similarities were there).

 

The Italian and Latin for "wasp" is "Vespa" and so the name of the Vespa scooter was born.