American Football in other Languages

The sport we know as American football is not necessarily called by the same name around the world. Here are the names for American football in 100 of the languages of the world. The names are taken from the Wikipedia page for American football in each of these languages, rechecked in September 2026. You will notice that many of the names are either a literal translation of the English name or a phonetic spelling of it. In many places around the world, the sport is also known as gridiron.

Since this page was first published in 2020, Wikipedia has gained articles about the sport in another 17 languages — among them Hausa, Hawaiian, Igbo, Manx, Mongolian, Swahili, Yoruba and the constructed language Toki Pona.

Name by Language