Hey, people. I can think of another possibile reason for calling it "topload". You can see it as a capacitor which is "driven" by the secondary coil. So the capacitor is the "load reactance" of the coil or simply the "load" of the coil and the coil acts as a "supply" for the "load". And since the capacitor is on top of the coil, it's called a "topload". ;)
I think Richard Hull may have refered to the toroid as a topload when discussing things on his videotapes prior to the creation of this pupman list. Richard and his group often used metal items which were not exactly "toroid shaped". The strange shapes of some of the items may have called for a different term other than toroid. I'm not sure if this is what contributed to his use of the word. I'm not 100% sure he was the first to use the topload term. Maybe someone has more knowledge of this facet of coiling history. Richard always use to stess the necessity for using a very large toroid or topload for best results. On one of his tapes he shows the huge metal fan shroud that his friend Alex Tjainchek placed on a small 2" x 11" coil to create the extra coil of his magnifier.John