Surfboards catch waves, like sound waves?

Sure. I wish they'd put a bit more work into the name. Maybe I'm thickheaded since I can't get over the word association each time I read, "Surfboard".

Perhaps they’ve been using the WaveSurfer software for audio analysis (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/WaveSurfer).

Hi there, Author of the paper here! We chose Surfboard because 1) it's a fun name and 2) surfers ride waves, and Surfboard works with WAVEforms. That's it really :D

It is a fun choice and hopefully it'll stick in people's minds! :)

It's hard to please everyone with the names. I surf, and I suppose that is why "surfboard" carries a stronger meaning for me. You took our word!! :)

Or a reference to the AudioSurf game which used audio feature extraction to create levels?

Could it be a reference to the SURF feature detector? I thought that was for images though