Why is the letter "W" called that?

[Cyclonus]

It's a double V, not a double U.

 

[The Evil Midnight Bomber]

In block letters it's a double V but if you write in cursive it looks more like a double U.

 

[spergetti & NEETballs]

in many languages such as French it is called some variation of "double V", anglos fucked up

 

[Colon capital V]

Not even "wee" or "way" like some letters, smh

 

[The Evil Midnight Bomber]

in many languages such as French it is called some variation of "double V", anglos fucked up

They do look kinda like Us in gothic font, too.

 

[The Luigi Player]

should be called V-V or U-U if they wanted to call it "Double V / Double U"

 

[Hamsteroid]

I guess the old Latin alphabet is to blame: There is no special letter for "U", instead the letter "V" is used.

For the same reason, there is a German proverb "Jemandem ein X für ein U vormachen" (roughly translated: "Fooling someone to think an X is an U"). This comes from a time when the bill in a bar was written in Roman numerals on a slate. When it was time to pay, some drunks tried to convince the bartender that their X (10) was actually an U/V (5).

 

[Chongqing]

It seems weird that we don't have a letter for the th sound, but the sound of ou with another vowel gets w.

Ouorking as a ouagie, for example.

 

[Table Country]

Far as I can tell, in old english there's an "uu" sound, hence "double-u".

 

[Mr.Miyagi]

It seems weird that we don't have a letter for the th sound, but the sound of ou with another vowel gets w.

Ouorking as a ouagie, for example.

We used to: thorn. But it fell out of use and the printing press basically killed it off, replacing it with y, but pronounced with th. That's how we wound up with "Ye Olde."

 

[My Name is Ed]

At some point English speakers decided they needed a new approximant consonant and figured they'd replace the "ua" sound with a single labial-velar consonant.