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lvbuckeye said:
The question was, "Does anyone know how Dixie got its name?" Dixie had its name before the song was written.
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Cecil Adams from The Straight Dope offers four possible (not really plausible) explanations. Take your pick:

Dear Cecil:

Where did the name "Dixie" come from?

Leigh-Anne H., Dallas

Cecil replies:

Dixie is usually thought to include the states of the Confederacy, but where the term comes from nobody knows for sure. Here are the three leading theories:

(1) Before the Civil War, the Citizens Bank of Louisiana, located in New Orleans, issued ten-dollar notes that bore the Creole/French word dix, ten, on one side. These notes were known as "dixies" and the south came to be known as the "land of dixies."

(2) The term comes from the Dixon in "Mason-Dixon line," the famous pre-Revolutionary War surveyors’ line that separated Maryland and Pennsylvania.

(3) It comes from "Dixy’s land," Dixy supposedly being a kindly slave owner on Manhattan island, of all places. Dixy’s regime was supposedly so enlightened that for slaves his plantation came to symbolize earthly paradise. Sounds ridiculous, but the story was widely told in the years just after the Civil War.

The trouble with all these explanations is that there are no published citations of the word prior to the appearance of Daniel Emmett’s song "Dixie" in 1859. One etymologist notes that a minstrel named Dixey performed in Philadelphia in 1856, but that’s not much help. For what it’s worth, the editors of the American Heritage Dictionary, normally reliable in these matters, come down foursquare on the side of explanation #1, on the basis of what evidence I do not know.

Then you get a few characters like the guy in the journal American Speech who speculates that it comes from dixi, Latin for "I have said [it]." This is allegedly emblematic of the take-no-guff attitude characteristic of the antebellum south. Forgive me if I decline to take sides.

Cecil Adams
 
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LordJeffBuck said:
Cecil Adams from The Straight Dope offers four possible (not really plausible) explanations. Take your pick:

Dear Cecil:

Where did the name "Dixie" come from?

Leigh-Anne H., Dallas

Cecil replies:

Dixie is usually thought to include the states of the Confederacy, but where the term comes from nobody knows for sure. Here are the three leading theories:

(1) Before the Civil War, the Citizens Bank of Louisiana, located in New Orleans, issued ten-dollar notes that bore the Creole/French word dix, ten, on one side. These notes were known as "dixies" and the south came to be known as the "land of dixies."

(2) The term comes from the Dixon in "Mason-Dixon line," the famous pre-Revolutionary War surveyors’ line that separated Maryland and Pennsylvania.

(3) It comes from "Dixy’s land," Dixy supposedly being a kindly slave owner on Manhattan island, of all places. Dixy’s regime was supposedly so enlightened that for slaves his plantation came to symbolize earthly paradise. Sounds ridiculous, but the story was widely told in the years just after the Civil War.

The trouble with all these explanations is that there are no published citations of the word prior to the appearance of Daniel Emmett’s song "Dixie" in 1859. One etymologist notes that a minstrel named Dixey performed in Philadelphia in 1856, but that’s not much help. For what it’s worth, the editors of the American Heritage Dictionary, normally reliable in these matters, come down foursquare on the side of explanation #1, on the basis of what evidence I do not know.

Then you get a few characters like the guy in the journal American Speech who speculates that it comes from dixi, Latin for "I have said [it]." This is allegedly emblematic of the take-no-guff attitude characteristic of the antebellum south. Forgive me if I decline to take sides.

Cecil Adams
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Given the importance of New Orleans as a port in the pre-Civil War era of the United States, I can somewhat buy explanation number 1.
 
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Fungo Squiggly said:
@Gatorubet -- Don't they mean "...the song's obvious connections to defense against Northern Aggression"?
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Nah. My ancestors were Yankees.

In fact, my ancestor enrolled in the 13th Michigan infantry. Thanks to the National Archives in D.C. I learned that he deserted after Shiloh, went back home to Michigan, took a bonus to join the 11th Michigan Cavalry, and then deserted again when the unit was sent south to Tennessee.

I have some murderers and thieves in my family tree, which I mention rather than talk about the guy from Kalamazoo.
 
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Gatorubet said:
In fact, my ancestor enrolled in the 13th Michigan infantry. Thanks to the National Archives in D.C. I learned that he deserted after Shiloh, went back home to Michigan, took a bonus to join the 11th Michigan Cavalry, and then deserted again went the unit was sent south to Tennessee.
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So you're saying an ancestor from Michigan quit on his unit twice?

Apropos.
 
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