At the start, "Maemo" was the name of the computer used internally by Nokia's developers as they built a new, Linux-based mobile operating system. The name quickly grew to refer to the development project for that OS.

At that time, the operating system itself was called Internet Tablet OS. And clearly, Nokia's marketing department hadn't yet taken much notice of it.

After Nokia released OS2008.1 (Diablo) for the N800 and N810, they announced the ITOS name would be dropped for Fremantle. Instead, the next OS release would be given the "Maemo 5" name, and past ITOS releases (OS2005, OS2006, OS2007, and OS2008) would be retroactively dubbed Maemo 1 through 4.