Müller called the languages "Tocharian" (German Tocharisch), linking this toxrï with the ethnonym Tókharoi (, Ptolemy VI, 11, 6, 2nd century AD) applied by Strabo to one of the Scythian tribes that overran the Greco-Bactrian kingdom (present day Afghanistan-Pakistan) in the second half of the 2nd century BC.
The name of Kucha in Tocharian B was Kuśi, with adjectival form kuśiññe.