Well, this is a super interesting question. I did a little digging up and found answers across the web. Pav is a Portuguese word for bread. Portuguese are the ones who brought the leavened bread baking to India. In fact, before the Akbar reign, Indians were not even accustomed to refined flour. Whole wheat flour was the major consumed flour and the same is true even now. So pav is a bread that is made in a form of a Ladi ( continuous array), hence it is called Ladi pav. Or like my daughter like to call it, the pav bhaji bread!