Alabama is one of the states that doesn't have an official nickname, but (according to the Readers' Digest) "the nickname that's most commonly used is 'The Heart of Dixie,' according to the Alabama state archives. That phrase has appeared on state automobile license plates since the 1950s, although in 2002, the term, 'Stars Fell on Alabama,' which refers to a famous meteor shower over Alabama in 1833, also found its way on to license plates.
According to netstate.com (a resource for American schools), "'The Heart of Dixie' was a phrase developed in the 1940s and 1950s by the Alabama Chamber of Commerce. Alabama was commonly referred to as the 'Cotton State' but so were many other southern states. The Chamber sought a more distinctive slogan for their state and promoted that 'Alabama is geographically the Heart of Dixie, Alabama is industrially the Heart of Dixie, Alabama is, in fact, the Heart of Dixie.' In 1951, with backing from the Alabama Chamber of Commerce, the Alabama Legislature passed a bill to add 'Heart of Dixie' to automobile license plates. In 1955, the first license plate bearing the new slogan was produced."
Netstate adds that 'Sweet Home Alabama' has appeared on license plates in the state, "as of 2009". Wikipedia also mentions this, and that "in September 2007, Alabama Governor Bob Riley announced [that] the phrase 'Sweet Home Alabama' would be used to promote Alabama state tourism in a multimillion–dollar ad campaign." Both of these moves were controversial, as the song Sweet Home Alabama by the Southern rock group Lynyrd Skynyrd was written as a rebuttal to two songs by the Canadian–born singer–songwriter Neil Young (Southern Man and Alabama), both of which criticise Southern attitudes to race.
Britannica gives Yellowhammer State as a nickname for Alabama, as well as Cotton State.
According to netstate.com, the Yellowhammer State nickname "originated during the Civil War. A couple of suggestions as to the origination of the nickname have been presented. One suggestion states that the name was inspired by the gray uniforms of Confederate soldiers that had a yellow tinge to them because they were 'home–dyed.' Another states that a company of soldiers paraded in uniforms that were trimmed with yellow cloth. Either way, the Alabama soldiers reminded people of Yellowhammers ... The Yellowhammer is Alabama's State Bird."
Netstate also suggests that "While many southern states were referred to as Cotton Plantation States, Alabama was singled out as THE Cotton State because of its central location in the Cotton Belt." It gives this as another nickname – in fact, it lists it above Cotton State.
A fifth nickname, according to Netstate (not counting Sweet Home Alabama, or indeed Stars Fell on Alabama), is Lizard State – because of "an abundance of lizards along Alabama streams, in early times".
Wikipedia lists both Cotton Plantation State and Lizard State (citing Netstate), as well as Cotton State and Yellowhammer State.
And that is far more than I intended to write on this subject when I started this note.
(All emboldening is my own.)
© Haydn Thompson 2021