If you want the quick answer to why is American football called football, here it is. The word football originally described a whole family of ball games played on foot by ordinary people, not games where you kicked the ball. The name is centuries older than the American sport, and American football simply inherited it from the older football traditions it grew out of.
I did not always know that. A few years ago I was hosting a Super Bowl party, and a friend visiting from abroad, someone who had grown up on soccer his entire life, watched about two minutes of the game and turned to me with a simple question. Why do you call this football when they keep throwing and carrying the ball with their hands?
I gave him a confident answer about field goals and kickoffs, and he just laughed, because we both knew the players were barely using their feet. That moment stuck with me, because I realized I had no real idea why the sport had its name. So I went digging, and the history turned out to be far more interesting than I expected. This guide is everything I found, from the medieval origins of the word to why the name stuck even after the game changed completely.
The Short Answer: Why Is American Football Called Football?
The key thing to understand is that football, as a word, did not mean a game where you kick the ball. It meant a ball game played on foot. Centuries ago, sports enjoyed by the wealthy were often played on horseback, while the games the common people played were played on foot, on the ground. Football was simply one of those games played on foot.
That meaning existed long before anyone in America picked up a ball. By the time American football took shape in the late 1800s, the word football had already been attached to a range of games for hundreds of years. The American game grew out of those traditions, so it kept the name, even as its rules drifted far from kicking. In short, the name describes its roots, not the way it is played today.
The Origins of the Word “Football”
Football in Medieval Europe
Long before stadiums and television deals, football existed as a rough village game across medieval Europe. These early games were chaotic, with large groups of people from neighboring villages chasing a ball across fields and streets. There were almost no standardized rules, and a single match could involve dozens or even hundreds of players.
What these games shared was that they were played on foot. Players ran, wrestled, kicked, and carried the ball in a wild mix that looked nothing like any modern sport.
Why the Name Had Nothing to Do With Kicking
The popular assumption is that football means kicking a ball with your foot, but the historical meaning is broader. The most accepted explanation is that football distinguished games played on foot from those played on horseback. A peasant on foot played football, while a noble on a horse played something else entirely.
Language then evolved over time, as it always does. As different versions of these foot games developed their own rules, they each held on to the football name in some form.
How American Football Developed From Rugby and Soccer
The Birth of Modern Football Codes
For centuries these games had no firm rules, but that changed in nineteenth-century England. Schools and clubs wanted consistent games, so they began writing down codes. In 1863, the Football Association was formed to standardize one version, which became known as association football, the game most of the world calls soccer.
Not everyone agreed with those rules, though. Some preferred a game that allowed handling and running with the ball, and that disagreement led to a split. Those who favored carrying the ball eventually formed their own code, rugby football, in the early 1870s.
Football Arrives in North America
These English games crossed the Atlantic and took hold at North American colleges. In the late 1860s and 1870s, universities began playing their own football matches, borrowing from both the kicking and the handling traditions. An early contest between Rutgers and Princeton in 1869 is often cited as a milestone, though it looked more like soccer than the sport we know.
Things shifted when Harvard played a series of games against Canada’s McGill University in 1874. Harvard preferred a running, carrying style, and the rugby-based rules from those matches spread to other American schools.
The Influence of Rugby on American Football
Rugby’s fingerprints are all over early American football. The idea of carrying the ball downfield, tackling the ball carrier, and packing players together in scrums all came straight from rugby.
This is the crucial link in the story. American football did not appear out of nowhere. It was rugby football, reshaped on American campuses, which is why it carried the football name with it from the very start.
The Role of Walter Camp in Creating American Football
Who Was Walter Camp?
The man who turned that rugby-style game into a new sport was Walter Camp, a player and coach at Yale. He is widely known as the Father of American Football, and for good reason.
Major Rule Changes He Introduced
Camp’s changes were the turning point. He introduced the line of scrimmage, which created the orderly start to each play that rugby did not have. He added the down-and-distance system, requiring a team to gain a set number of yards within a limited number of attempts or hand over the ball. He also reduced the number of players on each side to eleven.
How These Changes Created a New Sport
Together, these rules transformed the game. The free-flowing chaos of rugby gave way to a structured contest of set plays, possession, and territory.
Why the Name “Football” Stayed Even After the Rules Changed
Historical Continuity
The simplest reason the name survived is continuity. The American game evolved step by step out of rugby football, which itself came from older football traditions.
Existing Public Recognition
By the time the rules settled, fans and players already knew the game as football.
Cultural Acceptance
There was also simply no pressure to change it. The name was accepted, familiar, and tied to the sport’s history.
Why Do People Think the Name Doesn’t Make Sense?
Most Plays Use the Hands
The confusion my friend felt is completely understandable. In the modern game, most of the action happens with the hands. Quarterbacks pass the ball, receivers catch it, and running backs carry it.
Limited Kicking in Modern Football
The actual kicking is squeezed into a few specific moments. Punts, kickoffs, and field goals are the main ones, and they make up a small slice of any game.
Comparing Usage of Feet in Other Sports
The contrast with other sports makes it sharper. In soccer, players use their feet almost constantly. Even rugby and Australian rules football involve more kicking than American football does.
How Much Kicking Actually Happens in American Football?
Kickoffs
Kicking does still matter, just in concentrated bursts. A kickoff starts each half and follows every score, sending the ball downfield to the receiving team.
Punts
Punts happen when a team gives up possession on fourth down, kicking the ball away to push their opponent back.
Field Goals
Field goals are the most famous kicks, worth three points when a team kicks the ball through the uprights.
Extra Points
After a touchdown, teams usually kick a short extra point to add one more to the score.
Onside Kicks
The onside kick is a rare, dramatic play where a trailing team tries to recover its own short kickoff. Add all of these together, and special teams, the units that handle the kicking, are genuinely important, even if the foot is not the main tool of the sport.
American Football vs Soccer: Why Both Are Called Football
Shared Historical Roots
The reason both sports share the name is that they share an ancestor. Soccer and American football both trace back to those old foot games of medieval Europe.
Diverging Rule Sets
From that common start, the rules split hard. Soccer built its entire game around controlling the ball with the feet and banned using the hands for almost everyone on the field. American football went the other way, building around carrying and passing the ball with the hands.
Why Americans Use Different Terms
So where did soccer come from as a word? It is actually British. The formal name for the sport is association football, and British students shortened association into soccer as slang. Americans adopted that term to tell their own football apart from the kicking game, which is why the two names live side by side today.
Is American Football the Only Football Played Mostly With Hands?
Rugby Football
American football is far from the only football where hands do most of the work. Rugby football, its direct parent, is built around carrying and passing the ball by hand, with kicking used selectively.
Canadian Football
Canadian football is a close cousin of the American game, played on a larger field with a few rule differences. It too relies heavily on throwing and running, yet it carries the football name without anyone blinking.
Australian Rules Football
Australian rules football blends kicking and handling in a fast, open game. Players use both their hands and feet constantly, sitting somewhere between the kicking and carrying traditions.
Gaelic Football
Gaelic football, popular in Ireland, also mixes catching, carrying, and kicking.
Why Is It Called Football in the United States but Not Everywhere Else?
Language Differences Around the World
Around the world, the word football usually means soccer. In most countries, if you say you are going to watch football, everyone assumes the kicking game.
Influence of Popular Sports in Different Countries
This comes down to which sport dominates a culture. In most of the world, soccer is the giant, so it claimed the plain word football. In America, the gridiron game became the dominant sport with that name, so soccer needed a separate label. Each country’s most popular game tends to win the simple name.
Modern International Confusion
That difference is exactly why visitors get confused, just like my friend at the party. Someone who grew up calling soccer football is naturally puzzled to see a hand-heavy sport claiming the same word. The confusion is real, but it comes from geography and history, not from any mistake.
Common Myths About Why American Football Is Called Football
Myth #1: It’s Called Football Because Players Kick the Ball Most of the Time
This is the biggest myth, and it is simply false. Players do not kick the ball most of the time, and the name never depended on that. Football referred to a game played on foot, not a game decided by kicking.
Myth #2: The Name Was a Mistake
Some assume the name is an accident or a mislabel, but it is not. The sport was called football consistently throughout its development because it genuinely belonged to the football family of games.
Myth #3: Americans Invented the Term
The word football is English and centuries old. Americans did not coin it. They inherited it through rugby and the older English games that came before.
Myth #4: Soccer Was Always Called Soccer
Even the word soccer is not American in origin and was not always the name. It started as British slang for association football, and only later became the standard American term for the sport.
Interesting Facts About the Name “Football”
A few details make the story even clearer. Those early football games had almost no standardized rules and varied wildly from place to place. Soccer’s official name is still association football, and rugby’s full name is rugby football, both keeping the family word. American football inherited its name from these earlier football codes rather than inventing anything. And the term football itself is older than every modern version of the sport, which is the heart of the whole answer.
FAQs
Why is American football called football if you don’t use your feet?
Because football originally meant a ball game played on foot, not a game where you kick. American football inherited the name from older football traditions, even though it is played mostly with the hands.
Who invented American football?
No single person invented it, but Walter Camp is called the Father of American Football for the rule changes that turned the rugby-style college game into a distinct sport.
Did football come from rugby?
Yes. American football developed directly from rugby football, which spread to American colleges in the 1870s before being reshaped into a new game.
Why do Americans call soccer soccer?
Soccer comes from association football, shortened by British students into soccer. Americans adopted the term to distinguish that game from their own football.
What was football originally called?
It was simply called football, a name for the rough on-foot ball games of medieval Europe that had few rules and many players.
Is American football older than soccer?
As organized sports, soccer was codified slightly earlier, with the Football Association forming in 1863. Both games descend from the same much older folk football.
Conclusion
So the next time someone asks why is American football called football, you will have the real answer. The word football never meant kicking. It meant a ball game played on foot, a name that is centuries older than the American sport itself.
American football earned its name honestly, evolving out of rugby football, which came from the older football traditions of England and Europe. By the time Walter Camp’s rules turned it into a hand-heavy game of its own, the name was already locked in, familiar to everyone, and tied to its history.
That is why it stayed football even as the feet faded into the background. The name is not a mistake or a joke. It is a small piece of living history, and the next time a soccer fan teases you about it, you can tell them their game and yours are just two branches of the same very old tree.
