Why Are the New York Knicks Called the Knicks? Name History

Few team names in professional sports carry as much history as the New York Knickerbockers. Most fans know the shortened version, the Knicks, but the full name stretches back four centuries, weaving together Dutch settlers, a literary hoax, and a hat full of folded paper. Here's how it all connects.

The Dutch Settlers Who Built New York and Gave It a Fashion Statement

The term "Knickerbockers" traces its roots to the Dutch settlers who came to the New World and what is now New York in the 1600s, specifically referring to a style of clothing those settlers wore. Knickerbockers were loose trousers, rolled or gathered just below the knee, that became closely associated with the early Dutch identity of the city. Over time, locals shortened the word to "knickers," and it stuck as a cultural shorthand for anything rooted in old New York.

How Washington Irving Accidentally Made "Knickerbocker" a New York Institution

The name might have remained a fashion footnote if not for a writer's prank in 1809. Washington Irving penned a parody version of New York's history under the fake name Diedrich Knickerbocker. In the text, a "knickerbocker" was defined as a New Yorker who could trace their history back to the early Dutch colonists.

The book became wildly popular. With its publication, the Dutch settler "Knickerbocker" character became synonymous with New York City, and the city's most popular symbol of the late 19th and early 20th centuries became "Father Knickerbocker," complete with a cotton wig, three-cornered hat, buckled shoes, and, of course, knickered pants, as the NBA later noted in its own history of the team's name.

The Name's First Appearance in Sports: Baseball, 1845

Before basketball existed, the Knickerbocker name had already made its way onto a playing field. The first "modern" baseball club was the Knickerbockers of New York, founded on September 23, 1845, by Alexander Cartwright, a fireman from the Knickerbocker Engine Company No. 12 in New York City. Cartwright and his friends are believed to have named the club after Manhattan's volunteer Knickerbocker Engine Company. The name had become so embedded in New York identity by then that it was a natural fit for the city's first serious athletic club.

How the NBA's Knicks Got Their Name: A Hat, a Vote, and a Legend

Fast forward to 1946. The team was established by Ned Irish in 1946 as one of the founding members of the Basketball Association of America (BAA), which later became the NBA. When it came time to pick a name, Irish kept it simple. "The name came out of a hat. We were all sitting in the office one day, Irish, publicity man Lester Scott, and a few others on the staff," longtime Garden executive Fred Podesta later recalled, via NBA.com. "We each put a name in the hat, and when we pulled them out, most of them said Knickerbockers, after Father Knickerbocker, the symbol of New York City. It soon was shortened to Knicks."