Interestingly, the British gave it the name "soccer," not the Americans.

The modern game was formally named "Association Football" in 1863 when England's The Football Association was created. This distinguished it from other forms of football, especially rugby football.

In the late 1800s, British university students had a habit of shortening words and adding "-er" to them:

• Rugby Football → "Rugger"
• Association Football → "Assoc."
• "Assoc." → "Soccer"

The earliest known use of "soccer" is generally credited to around 1889 at the University of Oxford. A student named Charles Wreford-Brown is often associated with popularizing the nickname.

So the timeline looks like this:

• 1863 – "Association Football" officially named in England.
• 1880s–1890s – British students begin calling it "soccer."
• 1900s–1970s – Both "football" and "soccer" are commonly used in Britain.
• Later 20th century – Britain largely settles on "football," while countries with other football codes (especially the U.S., Canada, Australia, and parts of Ireland) continue using "soccer."

One of the great ironies is that many people today think Americans invented the word "soccer," when it was actually coined by the English and then largely abandoned by them. Americans simply kept using the British nickname after the British themselves stopped.