# Who Named World War II? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [March 5, 2007, 1:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-named-world-war-ii/394670 "2007-03-05T13:27:18Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![danhughes1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/bc79bd/32.png) [@danhughes1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/danhughes1)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2007, 1:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-named-world-war-ii/394670/1 "2007-03-05T13:27:18Z")
A note in John’s Bathroom Reader claims that World War II was so named by Harry Truman - in 1945. And that prior to that, FDR had called it “The War for Survival.” Doesn’t seem right to me. Nobody called it World War II until it was over (or nearly so)? ---
**Author:** ![Chez\_Guevara](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/aeb1de/32.png) [@Chez\_Guevara](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chez_Guevara)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2007, 2:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-named-world-war-ii/394670/2 "2007-03-05T14:02:44Z")
This [Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_war) article claims as follows: > [@](#): > > The term “Second World War” was also coined in the 1920s. In 1928, US Secretary of State Frank B. Kellogg advocated his treaty “for the renunciation of war” (known as the Kellogg-Briand Pact) as being a “practical guarantee against a second world war”. The term came into widespread use as soon as the war began in 1939. Time magazine introduced the term “World War II” in the same article in which it introduced “World War I,” three months before the start of the second war. ---
**Author:** ![Smeghead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f1d935/32.png) [@Smeghead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smeghead)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2007, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-named-world-war-ii/394670/3 "2007-03-05T15:23:51Z")
Kind of tangential, but I was just listening to a book Alistair Cook wrote during and after the war, and while talking about the period just after it ended, he said journalists were still debating what it should be called. So even if the name had been proposed much earlier, it wasn’t a done deal until after it ended. ---
**Author:** ![vetbridge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/b5e925/32.png) [@vetbridge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vetbridge)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2007, 3:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-named-world-war-ii/394670/4 "2007-03-05T15:27:40Z")
[QUOTE=danhughes1] A note in John’s Bathroom Reader claims [/QUOTE] Just wanna point out that although I will admit to owning/reading several of these books, they are filled with inaccuracies. ---
**Author:** ![Mk\_VII](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Mk\_VII](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mk_VII)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2007, 6:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-named-world-war-ii/394670/5 "2007-03-05T18:32:01Z")
Churchill’s _The Second World War_, which began to appear in 1948, pretty well settled the convention, although I doubt he was the first. ---
**Author:** ![KarlGauss](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/karlgauss/32/3713_2.png) [@KarlGauss](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KarlGauss)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2007, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-named-world-war-ii/394670/6 "2007-03-05T18:38:52Z")
[Didn’t we just do this](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=409708)? ---
**Author:** ![Clothahump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/51bf81/32.png) [@Clothahump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Clothahump)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2007, 11:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-named-world-war-ii/394670/7 "2007-03-05T23:59:45Z")
There’s an argument to be made that we have only had one World War. It began in 1914 and ended in 1945 with a 20 year cease-fire in the middle. ---
**Author:** ![samclem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a9a28c/32.png) [@samclem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samclem)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2007, 12:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-named-world-war-ii/394670/8 "2007-03-06T00:21:47Z")
Searching my newspaper database, I get 9,000 hits from 1940-1943 for “world war II.” ---
**Author:** ![Walloon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/fbc32d/32.png) [@Walloon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walloon)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2007, 7:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-named-world-war-ii/394670/9 "2007-03-06T07:36:23Z")
In case you haven’t clicked through to any of the links, _Time_ magazine introduced the term “World War II” in its issue of June 12, 1939, three months before the war in Europe began.