Why Are They Called the All Blacks? The True Story Behind New Zealand Rugby's Famous Name

The All Blacks. Just saying the name conjures images of fierce haka challenges, razor-sharp back play, and a jersey that has become one of the most recognisable in world sport. But here's the thing: for a team this famous, surprisingly little is known about how they actually got their name. The story is not as straightforward as "they wear black." It involves a historic tour, a newspaper headline, and one of the most stubborn myths in rugby history.
Let's dig into the real story.
**New Zealand didn't always play in black**
Before the All Blacks existed, New Zealand's representative teams wore all sorts of colours. Dark blue, brown, white — the strip changed depending on the era and the tour. The 1888 New Zealand Native team, the first New Zealand rugby side to tour Britain and Ireland, wore a dark jersey that many accounts describe as black, but the national team had not yet settled on any kind of consistent identity.
At that time, New Zealand rugby was still finding its feet. Rugby had been introduced to the country in the 1870s and spread quickly through the provinces, but the idea of a colonial team seriously challenging the home nations was still untested. That all changed with one group of players: the 1905 Originals.
**The 1905 tour that changed everything**
In September 1905, a squad of players drawn from clubs across New Zealand set sail for Britain and Ireland. Over the next five months, they would play 35 matches — a punishing schedule that modern players would find unthinkable. They won 34 of those matches and lost just one, going down 3–0 to Wales in a game remembered for a controversial disallowed try.
That tour became legendary. The team scored 830 points and conceded only 39. British audiences had never seen anything like the way these New Zealanders played. They ran the ball from everywhere, moved at a pace the home teams couldn't match, and left reporters scrambling for words.
And they did it all in black. By the early 1900s, the national side had settled on an all-black kit — black jersey, black shorts, black socks, with a silver fern on the chest. For British fans accustomed to the colourful, intricate shirts of their own county teams, the sight of fifteen men in unrelieved black was striking. It was exactly that image that gave birth to the name.
**Where the "All Blacks" name really came from**
The most widely accepted origin of the name is refreshingly simple: it came from the jersey. During the 1905 tour, the London press adopted the touring team with enthusiasm, and most historical accounts credit a Daily Mail correspondent with coining the phrase "the All Blacks" in a match report. It was never a calculated marketing decision. It was a journalist describing what he saw — fifteen players running out in completely black kit.
The name took hold almost immediately. It appeared in headlines, spread from paper to paper, and was taken up by fans throughout Britain. By the time the team sailed home in March 1906, the name had already become part of rugby's vocabulary. The players didn't arrive in Britain as the All Blacks; they returned as the All Blacks.
**The "All Backs" myth, debunked**
If you've read anything about this subject before, you've almost certainly encountered the theory that "All Blacks" was a typo. The story goes like this: a journalist originally wrote "All Backs" to praise the team's brilliant back division, but a typesetter accidentally changed it to "All Blacks," and an iconic name was born by mistake.
It's one of those tales that seems too good to be true — because it is. Rugby historians have examined the newspapers of the time, and no version of "All Backs" appears anywhere in the coverage of the 1905 tour. The myth appears to have emerged decades later, likely invented as a neat explanation for a name people found mysterious.
That said, the myth has staying power for a reason. The 1905 team's backs genuinely were exceptional, playing a fluid, fast-moving style far ahead of its time. But that isn't where the name came from. The All Blacks are named for what they wore, not how they played. The fact that they played so magnificently just helped the name spread faster.
**A name the team never chose — at first**
Here's a detail that surprises many people: the players themselves didn't come up with the name, and the team's official name remained simply "New Zealand" for decades. "All Blacks" was an informal nickname, used by the public and the press, while official programmes and match documents referred to the national side by its country name.
Eventually, the nickname became so universal that the distinction stopped mattering. By the mid-20th century, everyone — including the players themselves — used "All Blacks." Today, the name is fully official: a protected trademark managed by New Zealand Rugby, printed on merchandise sold in every corner of the globe, and considered one of the most valuable sports brands in existence.
Its roots, though, are wonderfully unglamorous. It began as a description, nothing more.
**Black jersey, silver fern, haka**
The name didn't build the team's identity on its own. Three elements work together: the black jersey, the silver fern, and the haka.
The silver fern had been linked to New Zealand teams since the late 19th century, and when the kit settled on black, the fern became its permanent emblem. It was a piece of home carried onto every foreign pitch. The haka, meanwhile, has been part of New Zealand rugby for over a century, although it wasn't until later that it became the globally recognised spectacle we know today. The sight of the All Blacks gathering, eyes wide, hands trembling, standing in silence before breaking into song — it is now inseparable from the name itself.
Together, these three elements created a mystique that no advertising agency could have manufactured. "All Blacks" became the label for all of it: a uniform, a symbol, a ritual, and a way of playing rugby.
**A naming tradition that spread across a nation**
One of the most remarkable legacies of the All Blacks name is what it did to New Zealand sport as a whole. Today, nearly every national team in the country follows the same naming pattern:
- Black Ferns — women's rugby
- Black Caps — men's cricket
- White Ferns — women's cricket
- Tall Blacks — basketball
- Black Sticks — hockey
- Black Sox — softball
- Silver Ferns — netball
- Blackjacks — lawn bowls
Very few countries have such a consistent, instantly recognisable system for naming their national teams. It all traces back to that single nickname from 1905.
**Why the name has lasted**
Names in sport come and go. Clever nicknames fade. Teams rebrand, change colours, chase new audiences. But "All Blacks" has endured for more than a century, and that durability is no accident.
The name is honest. It describes exactly what you see: a team in black, top to bottom. And because every All Blacks side since 1905 has worn the same colour, on every pitch, in every era, the name has become a living link between generations. The Originals of 1905, the Invincibles of 1924, the world champions of 1987, 2011 and 2015 — they all share the same jersey and the same name.
That continuity is rare in sport. It gives the All Blacks an authority that newer teams can only envy. The name wasn't invented by a committee. It was earned on a cold British pitch, by a group of players who made the world sit up and take notice.
So the next time you watch the All Blacks perform the haka, spare a thought for the name itself. It's not just a label. It's a century of history, written in black, and it belongs to New Zealand.