"Who dat?" is the rally cry of New Orleans Saints fans, short for the chant "Who dat say dey gonna beat dem Saints?" The phrase itself is much older than the team, tracing back to minstrel and vaudeville stages of the late 1800s before Louisiana high school and college fans handed it to the Saints in 1983.
Today it's a greeting and a whole identity. Ask anybody in the Who Dat Nation and they'll tell you the chant belongs to everybody. In 2010, that idea got tested in a very public way.
The Long History Behind "Who Dat"
The roots of "who dat" are uncomfortable, and an honest history has to start there.
According to the Wikipedia history of the phrase, the earliest documented Louisiana use turns up in the New Orleans Daily Picayune in 1852. By the late 1800s, "who dat?" and its answer, "who dat say who dat?", had become a stock call-and-response bit in minstrel shows, the blackface entertainment that mocked Black Americans for white audiences. It carried into vaudeville and early film comedy.
Black artists worked with the phrase too, often inside a system that limited what roles they could play. The poet Paul Laurence Dunbar used it in "When Malindy Sings" and in lyrics for "Clorindy, or the Origin of the Cakewalk," the musical he created with composer Will Marion Cook, staged in 1898. Jazz and big band performers picked it up in the 1920s and 1930s. Later uses in Hollywood leaned on the old caricature, and film historian Donald Bogle has criticized some of those performances as demeaning.
So when you chant it at the Dome, you're using a phrase that has passed through a lot of hands, some of them cruel. Knowing that history is part of saying it right.
From the Stands to the Saints
Before the Saints ever used it, the chant was already alive in Louisiana and Mississippi stands. Wikipedia's account notes claims that it started with Southern University fans around the late 1960s or early 1970s, and with St. Augustine High School in New Orleans. Acadiana high schools used it by the late 1970s, and Alcorn State fans had it on placards in 1980.
Then came 1983. The Saints had a new coach in Bum Phillips and a start that gave fans real hope. That year, a record put Saints players on the "Who dat?" chant with Aaron Neville singing "When the Saints Go Marching In." NFL.com's history of the phrase credits former sportscaster Ron Swoboda with pulling the idea together, and Wikipedia credits brothers Sal and Steve Monistere with the recording alongside Neville. The record became a local hit, and the chant became the Saints' own.
The 2010 Who Dat Trademark Fight
In January 2010, the Saints beat the Vikings in the NFC Championship and the city lost its mind in the best way. Who Dat shirts were everywhere. Then the NFL sent cease-and-desist letters to local T-shirt shops, claiming the league held rights to the phrase when used with Saints imagery.
New Orleans did not take it well. NBC News reported that Fleurty Girl owner Lauren Thom got one of the letters. Sen. David Vitter wrote to Commissioner Roger Goodell and threatened to print shirts reading "WHO DAT say we can't print Who Dat!" Rep. Charlie Melancon promoted a petition called "No One Owns WHO DAT." The Monistere brothers' company, Who Dat? Inc., also claimed rights from its own 1983 registration.
Louisiana Attorney General Buddy Caldwell said the NFL had conceded it didn't hold exclusive rights to "who dat," the fleur-de-lis or the team's colors, per Wikipedia's account. Legal fights between Who Dat? Inc. and the NFL, among others, dragged on until 2012, when they were settled. One attorney involved summed up the result as "nobody owns Who Dat."
On February 7, 2010, the Saints won Super Bowl XLIV in Miami. You could hear the chant from every front stoop in the city, and probably from the moon.
What "Who Dat" Means Now
Today "who dat" works as a greeting between strangers in Saints gear and as the name of the fan base. You'll hear it shouted at weddings and in the cereal aisle. It's part of a larger local vocabulary that runs from "where y'at" to "yeah you right," and you'll find the rest in our hub post, The New Orleans Alphabet.
As a shop that has been printing New Orleans shirts for twenty years, we pay attention to who gets to own a phrase. Our take: the people who chant it.
Wearing It on Game Day
Saints Sunday has a dress code, even if nobody wrote it down. Our Saints fans collection is where we keep the black and gold. The NOLA X is a game-day standby, and the Who Dat Rope Hat is for anyone who wants it right there on their head.
If you're new to all this, our guide to what to wear to a Saints game will get you dressed. And if you're visiting during a home game weekend, read what not to do in New Orleans first.
Who Dat Meaning: FAQ
What does "who dat" mean?
"Who dat" is a New Orleans Saints rallying cry, short for "Who dat say dey gonna beat dem Saints?" It also refers to Saints fans, known as the Who Dat Nation.
Where did "who dat" come from?
The phrase dates to at least the 1800s and was a call-and-response routine in minstrel shows and vaudeville. Louisiana high school and college fans used it before the Saints adopted it in 1983.
Did the NFL try to trademark "who dat"?
In 2010 the NFL sent cease-and-desist letters to shops selling "Who Dat" merchandise. After public pushback, the state attorney general said the league conceded it didn't hold exclusive rights to the phrase.
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