'Twyford' means the double ford.
The Anglo-Saxon name marks two fords over two branches of the River Loddon, on the Old Bath Road west of the village centre. According to the chronicler Geoffrey Gaimar, Æthelred of Wessex and his brother, the future Alfred the Great, escaped the Vikings after the Battle of Reading in 871 by a ford at Twyford unknown to their pursuers. Twyford is a common name in England.