Is it "Davy" or "David" Crockett?

In an article by the Houston Chronicle on July 8^th, the Associated Press asks the question “Is it ‘Davy’ or ‘David’ Crockett?” Their article states that “he was born 'David,'” signed documents “David,” and titled his 1834 autobiography A Narrative of the Life of David Crockett of the State of Tennessee.” There’s even a state park using the name “David” in Tennessee, a high school in Washington County using the name “David,” and a book by Buddy Levy using the name “David.” 


However, there are also two additional lakes using “Davy,” as well as a tower in Nashville, another state park in Greene County, and later Bill Hayes, Ernie Ford and Fess Parker’s chart topper song “The Ballad of Davy Crockett.”

Paul Hutton, a history professor at the University of New Mexico who has studied Crockett extensively said “David just doesn’t fit the image of a frontier fighter and brave warrior at the Alamo in Texas.” Michael A. Lofaro, a professor of English at the University of Tennessee who has researched folklore agrees with Hutton saying that “’almanacs’ in the mid-1800s used ‘Davy.’”

Thankfully, the one thing both sides seem to agree on is that he was a “frontiersman, Tennessee legislator, U.S. congressman, defender at the Alamo and folk hero.”

What do you think?

For more information on the controversy surrounding Colonel Crockett, check out our book How Did Davy Die? And Why Do We Care So Much?