Board Thread:Off-Topic Discussion/@comment-1676371-20180513053832/@comment-53539-20180604100508

Because its the last adult teeth you get, and you can get them quite late into your life. They can appear anywhere from 17 onwards and as I said are the last teeth to grow. Wisdom is traditionally seen as something that comes with age or adulthood, so you are at age where wisdom is a trait you have. This lead to the term "wisdom teeth".

People who say humans have undergone no evolution should know just 10,000 or so years ago, this wasn't a problem as our jaws were bigger. Some populations have no problems with these while others have already evolved to get rid of them, its all part of natural select and how random evolution is, so you can be lucky or unlucky.

You can read most of this on Wikipedia, though you have to go elsewhere for the name.