Inception的意思，根據Merriam-Webster的解釋, 是「an act, process, or instance of beginning.」但是電影取Inception為名，我推測和詞語的意義關聯不大，而與詞語的構成有緊密聯系。
Inception為拉丁語源，拉丁語 incipere，“to take in hand, to begin", 而其間前綴 "in-" 意指 “in, inside", 如inscribe, 此處"in-"並非表示否定。而詞根 cip-，拉丁語capere, "to catch, to seize, to take", 意為‘抓，取，拿”。那麽這個詞的字面理解就是"to get in and take". 而這與「盜夢空間」電影內容是有直接聯系的。
進壹步說Cobb在與Ariadne交談時解釋了盜夢的原理: 「Now in the dream, our mind continuously does this. We create and perceive our dream simultaneously. And our mind does so well that we don't even know what is happening. That allows us to get right in the middle of that process. By taking over the creating part. 」這就完美地對應了「In-cept-ion」的過程，進入目標的潛意識，再進行意念盜取。
extrahere，前綴ex-, "out", 如exit, exhale; "tract-", 來自拉丁語 trahere, "to draw", 意思就是 "to draw out", 意念盜取，和 inception: go into and take ideas 構成了完美接合融洽的字面意義邏輯對應，也是盜夢的兩個步驟。所以，我認為，片名inception的探索從構詞法的角度，更能夠契合電影的核心內容。Cobb在電影裏潛入Fisher的潛意識，植入(implant)意念；"maze"和"labyrinth", Ariadne的對白裏就用了"labyrinth", 剛好電影與神話再次符合。