The Academy Award of Merit: A History of the Oscar and How it Got its Name

From its creation in 1927, one of the first goals of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) was the development of a way to honor achievements in the motion picture industry. The Academy Awards, now in its 78th year, were the result of this work.

Vital to the success of the Awards was the creation of trophy that could be distributed at the Awards. MGM art director Cedric Gibbons was assigned the task of designing the statuette. The product of Gibbons' work was the statuette that we all recognize today: a simple, stylized golden knight standing on a reel of film and gripping a sword. The award was actually created by sculptor George Stanley.

How did the Oscar Get Its Name?

Although officially named the Academy Award of Merit, the statuette is almost universally known as the Oscar. But where did this name come from? A number of stories have arisen over the years.

The most popular story about the name's origin involves then Academy librarian and future executive director, Margaret Herrick. The story goes that Herrick, upon seeing the statuette sitting on a table exclaimed "it looks just like my Uncle Oscar!" The name stuck and it has been called by that name ever since.

Another common story involves actress and two-time Academy Award winner Bette Davis, who reportedly named it after her ex-husband, Harmon Oscar Nelson, Jr. Columnist Sidney Skolsky, perhaps the first to use the name in print, claimed that the name came from an old music hall joke, "Will you have a cigar, Oscar?"

Although we don't know the name's true origin, we do know that it quickly gained popularity. In 1934 Hollywood reporter Sidney Skolsky used the name in reference to Katherine Hepburn's win that year. Walt Disney is also reported to have called it by that name in the same year at the Awards ceremony. By 1939 the Academy itself was using the name officially.

Evolution of the Oscar Statuette

In its 78 years, the Oscar has undergone relatively few changes. Looking at a statue from 1929 and one today, they are almost exactly the same. It is 13 ½ inches tall and weighs 8 ½ pounds.

But there have been some very fundamental changes. At the very first Academy Awards ceremony on May 16th, 1929, 15 statuettes were awarded. These original Oscars were made of gold-plated solid bronze and placed upon a pedestal made of Belgian black marble.

The solid bronze statuettes did not last long, soon replaced with the metallic allow Britannium. During World War II there was a shortage of metal in the United States and the Oscars handed out in these years were cast in plaster. After the end of the war and the end of the shortage all of these awards were replaced with metal ones.

In 1945 two minor changes were made to the pedestal: it was made slightly higher and is now made of metal instead of marble. In 1949 the statues began to be numbered, starting with the somewhat arbitrary number of 501. This number is written behind Oscar's heels. As of 2005, 2,578 statues have been awarded.