[4] The popularity of the Italian-American sandwich grew from its origins in Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island extending to most of the United States and Canada.

[2] Some accounts source the name as originating in New London, Connecticut (site of a United States Navy submarine base from 1915 onwards) in the World War II era.

Written advertisements from 1940 in Wilmington, Delaware indicate the term originated prior to the United States entering World War II.

[11] The Philadelphia Almanac and Citizen's Manual offers a different explanation saying the sandwich was created by early-twentieth-century street vendors called "hokey-pokey men", who sold antipasto salad, meats, cookies, and buns with a cut in them.

Entrepreneurial "hokey-pokey men" sliced the loaf in half, stuffed it with antipasto salad, and sold the world's first "hoagie".

[12] Another explanation is that the word hoagie arose in the late 19th to early 20th centuries, among the Italian community in South Philadelphia; at the time "on the hoke" meant that someone was destitute.

[1] Yet another possible origin of the term, as conveyed by Howard Robboy is that a man in Philadelphia, Alphonso DePalma, who later opened a sandwich shop there claimed to have said in 1928, "You have to be a hog to eat one of those.

[21] The name is sometimes credited to the New York Herald Tribune food writer Clementine Paddleford in the 1930s, but there is no good evidence for the claim.

[8] In the Philadelphia area, the term grinder is also applied to any hoagie that is toasted in the oven after assembly, whether or not it is made with traditionally hot ingredients.

[25] The traditional Maine Italian sandwich is prepared using a long, soft bread roll or bun with ham and bologna along with American cheese, tomato, onion, green bell pepper, Greek olives, pickles, olive oil or salad oil, salt and cracked black pepper.

It has been said that wedge is short for "sandwich", with the name having originated from an Italian deli owner located in Yonkers, who got tired of saying the whole word.

The term spukie ("spukkie" or "spuckie") is unique to the city of Boston and derives from the Italian word spuccadella, meaning "long roll".

[33] In the United States, from its origins with the Italian-American labor force in the northeast, the sub began to show up on menus of local pizzerias.

To be merely a pizza-maker was to be at the bottom of the culinary and social scale; so many pizzeria owners began offering other dishes, including the hero sandwich (also, depending on the region of the United States, called a 'wedge,' a 'hoagie,' a 'sub,' or a 'grinder') made on an Italian loaf of bread with lots of salami, cheese, and peppers.Subs or their national equivalents were already popular in many European, Asian, and Australasian countries when late 20th-century franchisee chain restaurants such as Subway and fast food outlets made them even more popular and increased the prevalence of the word sub.