Hot dogs as we know them today trace back to German immigrants in the 1800s who brought sausages and the idea of the frankfurter (named after Frankfurt, Germany) to the United States. The key innovation? Serving the sausage in a bun—making it portable and perfect for street food.

That bun-sausage combo likely first appeared in the 1860s to 1870s, with Coney Island vendors popularizing it by the 1870s–1880s. Some credit Charles Feltman, a German immigrant in Brooklyn, for selling the first true “hot dogs” in a bun around 1867.

The name "hot dog" caught on in the early 1900s, possibly as a joke referencing the mystery meat origins of the sausage (there were rumors they contained dog meat—don’t worry, they didn’t).