Snickers’ name has got nothing to do with peanuts, nougat or chocolate

If you like your chocolate bars to have a bit of bite, to fill you up, and taste exceptional, there aren’t many better options than Snickers.

There’s nothing wrong with a Mars, Dairy Milk, or Galaxy, but if you want a sense of nourishment to go with your bar of reconstituted sugars, the Snickers has got be the way to go.

They used to be known as Marathon Bars here in the UK, switching to the original US name of Snickers in 1990. It was a decent alternative name – after you’ve torn through one, you should feel ready to take on some physical challenges.

While Marathon might have some logical roots to its name, Snickers is more of a mystery. What is a snicker? How many snickers are included in a Snickers bar?

Always the first ones to go from the share box - Ekaterina79 via Getty Images

Could a snicker be nougat, a caramel topping, peanuts, delicious milk chocolate, or all of the above?

It turns out there isn’t a single snicker to be found. Before you get on the phone to Trading Standards to give them an earful about false advertising, strap in for the story behind this unusual name.

Back in 1911, Frank and Ethel Mars opened a confectionary factory which, incredibly, turned out to be unsuccessful. Yes, this is future sweets titan Mars we’re talking about.

They pivoted to a new brand, ‘Mar-o-Bar’, which would later become the Mars Company we know today.

Mar-o-Bar hit the big time with Milk Way, which became a smash hit almost overnight.

With some cash behind them thanks to Milky Way’s rampant success, Frank and Ethel bought a 3,000-acre stud farm in Tennessee. Channing Tatum and Michael Cera were nowhere to be seen, unfortunately, as this was a stud farm for horses.

The farm was named after the Milky Way, and they kept many a horse on those 3,000 acres. In 1930, Ethel’s favourite one passed away just as an as-yet-unnamed chocolate bar was going into production.

In case you haven’t guessed: the horse was called Snickers, and the as-yet-unnamed chocolate bar also came to be called Snickers. What a coincidence!

The horse-honouring snack hit Chicago shelves in 1930 at just five cents a go, a full 37 years before they ventured across the Atlantic under the name ‘Marathon’.

A horse who presumably doesn't have a chocolate bar named after him - Steven Robinson Pictures via Getty Images

But why did Mars disrespect Ethel’s four-legged friend in this way? Apparently it’s because Snickers was deemed too similar to ‘knickers’ and that simply wouldn’t stand.

Thankfully, the 90s brought a stop to that nonsense, and now we can send one up for Ethel’s horse any time we get the urge to chomp through a satisfying peanut-nougat-chocolate concoction.

RIP big man.