 In September 1995 , Andy Gavin and Taylor Kurosaki took footage from the game and spent two days editing it into a two @-@ minute " preview tape " , which would be deliberately leaked to a friend at Sony Computer Entertainment so that the company may view it . Due to management issues at Sony , it wouldn 't be until March 1996 that Sony would agree to publish the game , which went into the alpha stage in April 1996 . While preparing for the game 's demonstration at the Electronic Entertainment Expo , the team decided to finally rename the title character " Crash Bandicoot " ( the particular name being credited to Dave Baggett and Taylor Kurosaki ) , with his surname being based on his canonical species and his first name stemming from the visceral reaction to the character 's destruction of boxes ( " Dash " , " Smash " , and " Bash " were other potential names ) . The marketing director of Universal Interactive Studios insisted that the game and character be named " Wuzzle / Wez / Wezzy the Wombat " or " Ozzie the Ottsel " . The name Crash Bandicoot prevailed after Naughty Dog threatened to leave the production . The same director also objected to the character of Crash 's love interest Tawna on " basic sexist principles " . 
