The short answer: no one knows for sure why it’s called “the Oscars,” but the nickname stuck from early Hollywood slang, and the Academy officially embraced it decades ago.

Quick Scoop: Why is it called “the Oscars”?

The award’s real name is the Academy Award of Merit , but almost everyone calls it an Oscar. The nickname emerged informally in the 1930s and became so common that the Academy officially adopted “Oscar” in 1939 and later branded the whole show as “The Oscars.”

The main theories behind the name

There isn’t a single confirmed origin story, just a few competing Hollywood legends.

  1. The “Uncle Oscar” librarian story (the Academy’s own favorite)
    • Margaret Herrick, an Academy librarian in the 1930s (later executive director), supposedly said the statuette looked like her Uncle Oscar.
 * People at the Academy are said to have picked up the nickname from that remark, and it spread from there.
  1. The snarky columnist on deadline
    • Hollywood gossip columnist Sidney Skolsky claimed he coined “Oscar” during the 1934 ceremony, when Katharine Hepburn won Best Actress.
 * He disliked the word “statuette,” thought it sounded pretentious, and, recalling a vaudeville joke using the name Oscar, used it in his column to puncture the ceremony’s snobbery.
  1. Bette Davis and her husband’s backside
    • Actress Bette Davis later joked that she named the award “Oscar” because the statuette’s rear reminded her of her husband, Harmon Oscar Nelson.
 * The problem: the word “Oscar” appears in print before she would have been in a position to name it, so she eventually backed off the claim.

Most historians now say we probably can’t prove which story is true, only that the nickname was being used in Hollywood and the press by the mid‑1930s.

From stiff “Academy Awards” to pop-culture “Oscars”

Early on, the show was formally the Academy Awards and the statue was the Academy Award of Merit. But “Oscar” was short, punchy, and human; it sounded like a person rather than a bureaucratic prize, so it spread naturally in headlines and everyday conversation.

  • By 1934, “Oscar” was already being used in newspaper columns.
  • In 1939, the Academy officially recognized “Oscar” as the statuette’s nickname.
  • In 2013, producers leaned into the branding and promoted the telecast simply as “The Oscars” to make it feel less dusty and more modern.

In other words, the formal name never went away, but the catchy nickname won the culture war.

Why that nickname stuck so hard

Even without a clear origin, there are obvious reasons “Oscar” became the everyday name:

  • It’s short and easy to say on live TV and in headlines.
  • It feels personal and a bit playful, compared with the very formal “Academy Award of Merit.”
  • It fits Hollywood’s love of mythmaking: a mysterious nickname with several competing stories is almost more fun than a boring, documented origin.

An example of this: on modern broadcasts, presenters say “And the Oscar goes to…” even though the engraved plaque still reflects the formal award name.

Mini fact list

  • First ceremony: 1929, with the now-iconic golden knight statuette.
  • Official name: “Academy Award of Merit.”
  • “Oscar” in print: at least by 1934, in a Hollywood column about Katharine Hepburn’s win.
  • Nickname officially recognized by the Academy: 1939.
  • TV show widely branded as “The Oscars”: especially emphasized from 2013 onward.

TL;DR: It’s called “the Oscars” because a human-sounding nickname caught on in 1930s Hollywood—possibly from an Academy librarian’s Uncle Oscar, a wisecracking columnist, or Bette Davis’ joke—and the Academy eventually made that nickname official.

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