Cheesehead

Cheesehead is a nickname in the United States for a person from Wisconsin. The nickname is used for supporters of the Green Bay Packers, an American football team in the National Football League (NFL) based in the Green Bay, Wisconsin; it is also the name of cheese-shaped foam hats that supporters of the team wear. Wisconsin is well-known for its dairy industry and is called "America's Dairyland". The use of the term "cheesehead" in America originated with Illinois sports fans, who used it to derogatorily describe Wisconsin sports fans. Cheesehead as a derogatory term has an older history in Europe, with German soldiers mocking Dutch people by calling them kaaskop, which translates to "cheese head". Kaaskop is now considered a profanity and is used to refer to someone as stupid or dense.

Even with its derogatory history, the term was reappropriated and embraced by Wisconsinites, especially fans of the Packers. In the 1990s, cheesehead hats, made out of foam in the shape of a cheese wedge, became popular in the Wisconsin sports scene, especially for Packers' supporters. The hats were created and sold by a company called Foamation, who owned a trademark for the term "cheesehead". The Packers purchased Foamation in 2023, making the cheesehead hat and related memorabilia official merchandise.