How did donuts get their name?

The earliest known recorded usage of the term dates to an 1808 short story[5] describing a spread of "fire-cakes and dough-nuts." Washington Irving's reference to "doughnuts" in 1809 in his History of New York is more commonly cited as the first written recording of the term. read more

In four articles beginning October 9, two mention the donut spelling. Dunkin' Donuts, which was founded in 1948 under the name Open Kettle (Quincy, Massachusetts), is the oldest surviving company to use the donut variation, but the defunct Mayflower Donut Corporation is the first company to use that spelling, prior to World War II. read more

The doughnut came to us from the eighteenth century Dutch of New Amsterdam and were referred to as olykoeks, meaning oily cakes. In the nineteenth century, Elizabeth Gregory fried flavored dough with walnuts for her son Hanson Gregory, hence the name doughnut. By the late nineteenth century, the doughnut had a hole. read more

Doughnuts got their name because they resembled walnuts. The Dutch had introduced them as oil cakes and usually baked them as treats for holidays. After the introduction of baking powder and tin doughnut cutters, the hole was manufactured commercially around 1845. read more