What we know as a 'hot dog' today was originally called a 'dachshund sausage' for its resemblance to the low-slung German dog. However, nobody is entirely certain where the term 'hot dog' originated. Its said that in 1902 sports cartoonist Tad Dorgan was at a Giants baseball game, desperate for ideas as his deadline approached, when he heard concessionaire Harry M. Stevens cry out, 'They're red hot! Get your hot dachshund sausages while they're red hot!' Inspiration struck, and he hastily drew a cartoon of barking dachshund sausages nestled warmly in rolls. However, his spelling was fairly poor, a problem he solved by simply writing 'hot dogs'! Alas, this cartoon has never been found. Other sources credit Adolf Gehring as the inventor of the term 'hot dog.' According to this legend, Gehring, a food and drink vendor at a St Louis ball game, had run out of ware and was forced to visit a baker to buy bread, as well as the butcher for sausages and wieners. The baker had only long dinner rolls, which the desperate Gehring bought. Having cooked the meat on a portable wood stove, he started making his rounds in the park. One man apparently hollered, 'Give me one of those damn hot dogs', and soon practically everybody else in the crowd were calling out for hot dogs. [source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A1021834] "Hot Dog! 'Big Apple' Explained" in the Wall Street Journal of Jan. 2, 2001, written by Ed Zotti: The commonly told story is that "hot dog" began on a cold day in New York's Polo Grounds in the early 1900s, when food concessionaire Harry Stevens began selling sausages in long buns to warm up his shivering customers. Supposedly sports cartoonist T.A. Dorgan captured the event in a drawing, depicting the sausages as dachshunds and calling them "hot dogs" because he couldn't spell "frankfurter." Nice story, but it's just (sorry) baloney. [Barry] Popik [described earlier in the story as the "restless genius of American etymology"] established that the term "hot dog" was current at Yale in the fall of 1894, when "dog wagons" sold hot dogs at the dorms, the name a sarcastic comment on the provenance of the meat. Did the National Hot Dog and Sausage Council embrace this finding, which Barry sent to them? No. We might have predicted this. But he took it hard just the same. ***** Barry [...] is the part-time New York City parking judge who has done so much to clarify the origins of "Big Apple," "Windy City," and other expressions. [source: http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mhotdog.html] **** So why not call it a 'Hot Pig,' or even a 'Hot Meat By Product'? I guess its just not as catchy. ;)