Hot Dogs: How America's Ballgame Classic Got Its Name

"What's in a name?" Juliet once asked about her ill-fated lover, Romeo. We at Food Republic have a similar question about hot dogs, which by any other name would be as tasty a treat. To answer the question of how America's favorite ballpark protein got its name, we dove deep into the annals of German lore to parse through the many, often conflicting, explanations for the florid appellation. 

While sausages differ from hot dogs in the sense that they've been around in some form or another for around 4,000 years, the hot dogs we know and love come from the more recent past, though the exact provenance of their origins is the first topic of debate. It's generally believed that frankfurters came from, well, Frankfurt around the year 1487. Makes sense, right? However, some believe that a butcher named Johann Georghehner created them in Coburg, Germany, and later brought them to Frankfurt, and others say Germany had nothing to do it, and that the reason they're referred to as weiners is because they come from Vienna, which in German, is called "Wien."

While there are claims that American college students believed the sausages to be made of dog meat, it seems more likely that the reference to pups came from the thin, elongated shape of frankfurters, which led to people calling them "dachshund sausages," after the similarly contoured dog. These dachshund sausages were sold by New York street vendors, and by the late 1880s, the name had spread across the country.

Of course, no tale of hot dogs in America would be complete without bringing our nation's favorite pastime into it. In 1893, the dachshund sausage made its way to the Chicago World's Fair, courtesy of two brothers-in-law named Emil Reichel and Samuel Ladany, who set up a booth in the "Old Vienna" exhibit where they sold the hot dogs that would become Vienna Beef, now considered the best hot dog brand across MLB stadiums, for 10 cents a pop, topped with onions and mustard but absolutely no ketchup.

That same year, Chris Von de Ahe, owner of the St. Louis Browns, began serving hot dogs at his team's baseball games. A few years later, a man by the name of Harry M. Stevens, the inventor of the baseball scorecard, appeased a cold and increasingly bitter Polo Grounds crowd by swapping out the usual ham and cheese sandwiches for hot dachshund sausages in warm rolls. A cartoonist on hand at the time couldn't spell the word "dachshund," and simply captioned his cartoon "Hot dog!" Or, at least, that's how the story goes. The ballpark treat was a smash hit, driving out the incumbent ham and cheese and pushing us towards the present day, where the average American consumes around 70 hot dogs per year.

While there are many competing stories and claims to the throne of the inventor of the hot dog name, the truth, as always, likely lies somewhere in between. Like America or the hot dog itself, the naming process appears to be a melting pot of influences, both home and abroad, that came together to create the perfect, light-hearted moniker for the perfect gameday meal.