What's in a name? The origin of the 'Knick'

Article excerpt

The New York Knicks basketball team takes its name from the Knickerbocker, a Dutch settler figure whose legacy shaped New York City's identity. NPR's Elissa Nadworny speaks with Peter-Christian Aigner, director of the Gotham Center, to trace how Washington Irving's satirical 1809 "History of New York" introduced Diedrich Knickerbocker as a fictional Dutch historian, a literary invention that became synonymous with New York's founding families and, eventually, the city itself. The nickname stuck so thoroughly that when the basketball franchise launched in 1946, Knicks felt inevitable: a shorthand for the scrappy, stylish spirit of old New Amsterdam.