Diedrich Knickerbocker

Diedrich Knickerbocker is an American literary character who originated from Washington Irving's first novel, A History of New-York from the Beginning of the World to the End of the Dutch Dynasty, by Diedrich Knickerbocker (1809). He is a Dutch-American historian who is dressed in eighteenth-century breeches, which would later return to fashion as knickerbockers, later shortened to knickers. The word knickerbocker is also used to refer to people who live in Manhattan, and was adopted in a shortened form as the Knicks by the city's NBA professional basketball team.