What phrase is Reddit's name a play on?

Reddit’s name is a play on the phrase “read it.” The joke also evokes the sentence “I read it on Reddit,” linking the site’s name to its original purpose as a place where people discover and discuss things they have read online.

Reddit was founded in 2005 by Steve Huffman, Alexis Ohanian, and Aaron Swartz. Its early identity centered on links submitted by users, with the community deciding which posts deserved attention. That voting system helped make the name especially fitting: users could read interesting material and then share it with others.

The name is sometimes confused with “red it” or treated as an abbreviation, but it is simply a pun on the past tense of “read.” The pronunciation also matches “read it,” even though the spelling uses Reddit’s distinctive double-t construction.

Reddit later expanded well beyond shared links. Subreddits now host conversations, questions, images, videos, news, and specialized communities, but the original wordplay still describes the basic experience: users find something, read it, and talk about it.