Here are some stories and reasons about the 'Cactus' name :)

• It's a cool name ... Short, easy to pronounce, same meanings in all spoken languages, has some punch ...
• There is a famous french song by Jacques Dutronc about cacti that goes "le monde entier est un cactus ..." (the whole world is a Cactus). The lyrics is available here and the music (midi format) here . It is a song that says that cacti are everywhere and that everything is a cactus. I like that ! :) ...
• The J2EEUnit name (which was the previous name of Cactus) was fine but there was a Sun trademark on the J2EE part of the name ...
• Cactus is actually an acronym ... ha ha .. for Computer Assisted Construction of Test Units for the Server, or Cool and Comprehensive Test Units for the Server, or ... (please send your suggestions to the Cactus mailing list).
• The company for which I work ( OCTO Technology) had organized a diner to celebrate our 3 years of existence. I was looking for a new name for J2EEUnit. I asked some workmates to help me look for a name. We tried to find a name which had something to do with the Apache name. We thought of indians of course ... we tried several names and then Dominique said "Cactus" (you know, indians, the desert, cacti. That's one cliché of indians we have here in France !). I immediatly liked it ...
• The Cactus name has a rich visual iconography associated with it. So it should be possible to find a nice and funny logo (I'm still looking for the perfect logo ... If you have propositions, you can send them to the Cactus mailing list (there is currently a logo contest going on ! Try defeating the current logo if you think you can do better !).
• A Cactus is full of spines. Visually you can imagine that a piece of code that has gone through this rigourous and comprehensive testing has had all it's bug revealed ! ...
• We can imagine a motto like "Tested on Apache-Cactus" !
• Any more ... ?

-Vincent Massol