WHO IS OSCAR?!

 by Morgan Stone

There's something I haven't stopped thinking about for awhile, and it's really silly because it's just a google search away...or so I thought. I'm here to share my research with you.

I have been wondering for far too long why it's called the Academy Awards and they give out Oscars; both terms seeming interchangeable. When I was younger I was convinced that they were two different award ceremonies. Why is it this confusing? 

They official started using "Oscar" to refer to the physical award in 1939, and it's heavily disputed as to why. 

A biography on Bette Davis claims she named it after her husband Harmon Oscar Nelson. 

Maragaret Herrick (academy executive director) said it was named that because she said it looked like her uncle Oscar. 

Eleanore Lilleberg, (secretary at the Academy) wrote in an autobiography that it was named after an Oscar she knew. 

It seems that it was a term that started to take hold in culture before it was actually coined, especially since it was being used before it was officially adopted. 

My search came up a little bit dry, but I think it's safe to say that somebody knew somebody named Oscar, and felt that little statue looked enough like him that they started to call it that...then, that started to become a popular term, and the Academy got ahead of the hype and trademarked it, making "Academy Awards" synonymous with "The Oscars." 

It's probably something that we will never get to the bottom of, and we must just accept that this is part of pop culture.