Americans, Why is American Football called football?

I'm from the UK. Everytime I talk about our football (the sport which players use their feet to control the ball) I feel the need to add (soccer) to avoid confusion with you guys.

But I was thinking, your football is only kicked to start each quarter, to punt or for a field goal. The rest of the time the ball is in play, it's held in the players hands.



I know you guys can call our "soccer" association football, I generally refer to NFL when I'm talking about your professional game, but what's the real deal?



It's a serious question, how did your football become known as football?Americans, Why is American Football called football?
This is a pretty good question. One thing that has to be thought of is that many people don't actually think the word football comes from the action of kicking a ball with feet. Rather, it was used to distinguish certain games from games played on horseback, like polo. That's where "foot ball" possibly came from. Therefore, any game that descended from these early games generally kept the name football, despite the fact that many of them are vastly different (American football, soccer/association football, Australian football, Canadian football, rugby, etc.) There isn't any conclusive evidence to support either theory though. The popular games in an area apparently were called football by the locals.



Believe it or not, soccer was actually coined by a British man.



Well, after thinking maybe I shouldn't trust an article on Wikipedia that doesn't have sources quite so fast, I looked up some more stuff. Apparently there are a LOT of theories on why some people call the same sport football and soccer.



I suppose the best explanation is that football comes from soccer and rugby, and it was more popular than either of them in the US, so Americans just substituted the word. But why we call association football soccer is harder to explain.
Soccer: in the early days of this game, an association was set up in England to codify the rules. The game was sometimes referred to as "association football," probably to distinguish it from other variations. "association" was abbreviated to "assoc.," so the game was nicknamed "soccer."

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Americans, Why is American Football called football?
That is a good question. I think it has a lot to do with the original rules of the game when it was invented in the late 1800's. Since the game derived from elements of Soccer and Rugby, there was a lot of kicking going on. Thus, it being named football. I know a lot of people outside of the US call football either American Football or Gridiron.



The term soccer derived from association football. Those of us who travel outside of the US have to remember that you guys call soccer football and when you speak of a football match, then you are referring to soccer.
Because Americans have never been good at Soccer. So when they would play in the late 1800's, the game would devolve into something similar to rugby. Eventually, they made up their own rules, but the name football stuck. In the beginning they even used a soccer ball.Americans, Why is American Football called football?
the ball gets kicked in american football too. get over it already.
So people like you can ask these types of questions.
you kick the ball
They play with a football, so the game is called football.



Soccer is played with a soccer ball, that's why it's called soccer.



Rugby is played with a football but they call it rugby for some reason.



Cricket's played with a cricket ball and baseball is played with a baseball.
Because it's the only type of football that should exist.



Soccer doesn't deserve to be called football, it's too boring.
because America is the best country and we can do what ever we want!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!