What German city gives the frankfurter its name?

The frankfurter gets its name from Frankfurt, Germany. “Frankfurter” means a sausage associated with Frankfurt am Main, the major city on the River Main whose name became attached to a style of sausage.

Frankfurter sausages belong to the long history of German sausage-making. German immigrants carried sausage traditions to the United States, where frankfurter became one of the familiar names for the sausage later served in a bun as a hot dog. In North America, “frank,” “frankfurter,” and “hot dog” often overlap in ordinary usage.

The name can cause a geographical mix-up because the related sausage is called a Wiener or Wiener Würstchen in Germany, using the German name for Vienna. In Austria, however, a similar sausage is commonly called a Frankfurter. The labels reflect regional naming traditions as much as recipe differences.

Frankfurter Würstchen is also a protected geographical designation in Germany: the name traditionally refers to sausages produced in the Frankfurt area. That legal usage is narrower than the casual English use of “frankfurter” for many hot dogs.