'URL' originates from English, specifically the phrase 'Uniform Resource Locator', coined in the early 1990s (formalized in RFC 1738 in 1994), where 'uniform' meant 'consistent', 'resource' meant 'a source of data', and 'locator' meant 'an address'.

'URL' was introduced as an initialism for 'Uniform Resource Locator' with the rise of the World Wide Web; later discussions in Internet standards (for example, the introduction of the term 'URI' and related RFCs in the late 1990s) clarified and sometimes blurred distinctions between 'URL' and related terms like 'URI' and 'URN'.

Initially, 'URL' specifically denoted the syntax used to locate resources on the web; over time it has come to be used more broadly and often interchangeably with 'web address' or 'URI'.