The origin of hot dogs actually dates back to over five hundred years in the past. It is believed that hotdogs were made in Germany first and it was definitely not named hotdog back then! The sausage was actually named by a butcher in Frankfurt, Germany as "dachshund sausage", after his pet dachshund. Perhaps the shape of the dachshund, which is a small dog with a long and slender body, caused the butcher to see the resemblance between his sausages and his dog. Thus the name "dachshund sausage" came to existence. How the name changed from dachshund sausage to hotdog is another, highly controversial story.
Douglas B. Smith mentioned in his book that the credit of the name should go to the cartoonist T.A. Dorgan of the "New York Journal". According to the story that Smith wrote in his book "Ever Wonder Why", T.A. Dorgan was enjoying a baseball match back in 1901, when he heard vendors yelling to sell their "hot dachshund sausages". The situation drew the attention of Dorgan and being a cartoonist by profession, he made a cartoon sketch of the whole situation but being unsure about the actual spelling of the term "dachshund", he gave it the name of "hotdog". This is the most popular theory about the origin of the name hotdog.
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