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Perhaps because it is quite literally "double v"?



In my Second Language, Rarotongan Maori, The 'W' was completly replaced with a 'V' just under 200 years ago. In 1821 LMS missionary John Williams came to Rarotonga with his Tahitian counterpart Papehia. They diligently set about translating the Bible into the Native Rarotongan Maori which is very similar in structure and content to Tahitian Maori. Rarotongan at this point was a completely oral language and the subtleties in the pronounciation of the 'V' versus the 'W' were written as the Tahitian 'V' and adopted orally by my ancestors. The W is still prevalent in the New Zealand Maori Dialect.
vvv