I’m pretty close to Mr. Blue Sky’s stomping grounds, but I’ve also heard lots of people call them 'boggans, too. In my family, though, I think we called them “stocking caps.” (Not that there are lots of references to said item around here, though: We still talk about the Christmas of '73 – my only “White Christmas,” when a whopping 3-4 inches of snow accumulated!)
I grew up in rural West Tennessee and have lived in Nashville since the mid-1960’s. “Toboggin” is a familiar word, but not commonly used. We used to hear about people going toboggining. We just went sledding.
I definitely agree with hillbilly queen that toboggin, when used in reference to a hat, referred to one of those long pointy things that went way down your back.
I know them as “toboggans”, but we never called them that when I was a kid. My second-generation Italian-American mother always called them cupolinas.
In Alabama everybody calls them things 'boggans.
In and around Chillicothe, Ohio, we called them toboggans.
I dunno. Maybe way northern Wisconsin, but I’ve never heard of anyone referring to stocking caps as toques seriously. In an outrrrrrageous Canadian accent, sure, but not in an everyday manner. I have family from north of Wausau, and they all say stocking cap or hat. Of course, I’ve formed the opinion that southwestern Wisconsin is the strangest place on earth and the exception to every rule, so who knows.
Well, I grew up calling them toboggans, but since I was raised in Chattanooga, TN, I don’t find it odd that Aesiron and I use the same word for them.
Now, I typically just call them hats.
It’s a toboggan.
I used to grow up in and near Montgomery, AL, and all I ever heard them called there was “toboggan.” Later I heard “skull cap” or “knit cap” and eventually, courtesy of the O.J. Simpson trial, “watch cap.”
I was curious fairly early on why the sled and the cap had the same name, but never really did any checking to find out why. Just now I looked in my Webster’s Collegiate and found it had no cap definition for the word.
I would have said (before this thread) that “toboggan” may have been a regional thing, but the responses have proven me wrong there. It appears to be one of those words that flits about without lighting anywhere for long.
In that respect it’s probably like “sneakers” for those stinky shoes, which I have heard called many things over the years.