Perhaps I am imagining it, but I immediately thought it was a pun on AltaVista in that "alt" in German means old. But there is nothing on the site that seems to suggest that that was how the name came about. (Though in that sense, you can argue the original AltaVista already meant "Old'aVista".) The only clue is this line from the FAQ: > The name of the website itself is a wordplay on Altavista. Though, the creator m…
...given the line you quoted from the FAQ, I'm a bit confused about why you are still wondering. That seems about as straight forward of an answer to your question as one could expect.
(Of course the alta in Altavista is from Spanish "high", but that doesn't really change anything)