Names of Australian rules football

The sport of Australian football has been called by a number of different names throughout its history; but since 1905, after the formation of the Australasian Football Council, the game has been officially called "Australian football"; and the name has been codified by the sport's governing body, the AFL Commission, as the game's official name, in the "Laws of Australian football". Historically, the sport has been called "Victorian rules" (referring to its origins in Melbourne), the "Victorian game", the "bouncing game", "Australasian rules", the "Australian game" and "national football", as well as several other names. Today, the common names for the sport are "Australian rules football" or "football", and common nicknames for the sport are "footy", "Aussie rules" or sometimes "AFL" (a genericised abbreviation of Australian Football League, the sport's largest competition and only fully professional league).

The first "Laws of Australian football" were established in Melbourne in 1859 by Tom Wills of the Melbourne Football Club. This led to the development of the terms "the Victorian Game" or "Victorian Rules", although in Victoria, the general term was just "football" as early as 1860. As late as 1954, the term "Melbourne Rules" was being used by newspapers in New South Wales and Queensland to differentiate the game from other football codes. Another term was "the bouncing game", used mostly in Western Australia in the 1880s and 1890s to differentiate from the other codes, where bouncing was not permitted.

The name "Australian football" was in use outside of Victoria by the late 19th century. A variant of this, acknowledging the popularity of the sport in New Zealand, was "Australasian football". The 1908 Jubilee Australasian Football Carnival featured a team from New Zealand, but the popularity of the sport declined there after World War I. In 1927, the Australasian Football Council changed its name to the Australian National Football Council, to acknowledge that the sport was no longer being played competitively in New Zealand. State leagues were encouraged to include the term "Australian National" in their title, with the South Australian Football League (SAFL) becoming the South Australian National Football League (SANFL) in 1927, the Tasmanian Football League (TFL) becoming the Tasmanian Australian National Football League (TANFL) in 1928, and the West Australian Football League (WAFL) becoming the Western Australian National Football League (WANFL) in 1931. It was proposed that the Victorian Football League (VFL) become the Victorian Australian National Football League; however, this did not occur.

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