People from certain U.S. states go by unusual names—Connecticuter, Michigander, Utahn, to name a few—but Hoosiers from Indiana are the only ones whose name isn’t based on their state name at all.
Nobody really knows why it came into being, what the word originally meant, or where it came from. Some have claimed that the term is based on a man named Sam Hoosier, a contractor working on the Louisville and Portland Canal. He tended to hire workers from Indiana, who became known as “Hoosier’s men.” Eventually, the term was applied to everyone from Indiana. Another theory states that Indiana rivermen were notable fighters who frequently defeated, or “hushed,” their opponents. This led to the nickname hushers, which later became Hoosiers. Other explanations include a slurring of the greeting “Who’s yer.” In addition, in some areas hoosier was used to describe people who are rustic and unpolished.
Whatever the origin, by the 1820s some residents of Indiana were already embracing the Hoosier label, and in the 1830s its popularity really took off. The fad began, it seems, after a poem entitled “The Hoosier’s Nest” was published in the Indianapolis Journal in 1833. Set in “Blest Indiana,” the poem extols the virtues of life in the state. Rough but tough, poor but fulfilled, simple but hospitable, the Hoosier of the poem was not only ordinary and relatable but also admirable and ideal.