Baby Ruth bars weren’t officially named after the baseball player.

Grover Cleveland with his daughter Ruth

It’s easy to assume that Baby Ruth candy bars were named for the famed baseball player George Herman “Babe” Ruth Jr. Indeed, even the Great Bambino assumed as much at the time. After all, the nougaty confection debuted in 1921, after the ballplayer became a household name. But according to the official, legal explanation of the moniker, Baby Ruth bars were named after a different Ruth altogether: the daughter of former U.S. President Grover Cleveland.

When the confection first hit the market, its low price tag (5 cents, half the cost of similar candy bars) made it an instant hit for the Curtiss Candy Company — as did its connection with the famous Yankee slugger. It was so successful, the Sultan of Swat decided to get into the candy business himself. He founded the George H. Ruth Candy Company and developed the Ruth’s Home Run bar featuring his likeness on the wrapper.

Curtiss Candy Company took the ballplayer to court, alleging that its candy was not named after Babe Ruth, and the athlete was taking advantage of the success of Baby Ruth with his competing candy. In a deposition, Curtiss founder Otto Schnering claimed the bars were named after Ruth “Baby Ruth” Cleveland, who was born between her father’s two terms as president. Her birth sparked a national obsession, but she died of diphtheria in 1904 at just 12 years old. Schnering admitted that he hoped Babe Ruth’s notoriety would help with merchandising.

The court ruled in favor of Curtiss, but many in the American public still aren’t convinced. Popular fact-checking site Snopes.com even considers the claim that the candy bar was named after Ruth Cleveland to be patently false, pointing out that the candy company has made some suspicious claims about the origin of the Baby Ruth name. For instance, it claimed that Ruth Cleveland visited the Curtiss factory, but Curtiss was founded in 1916, 12 years after her death.

By the Numbers

Did you know?

Candy bars were advertised as hearty lunches.

When Hershey’s milk chocolate bars launched in 1900, there weren’t a lot of grab-and-go meal options available. Milton Hershey developed the candy to fill this void — specifically for long train rides — and advertised it as “more sustaining than meat.”

Chocolate bars ran with this marketing angle for the next few decades. Knickerbocker Chocolate Company described its Sportsman’s Chocolate Bracer as “two flat cakes of delicious eating chocolate, which can be eaten straight or between two slices of buttered bread in the form of a sandwich.” Candy bars called Chicken Dinner and Chicken Bone were named not because they contained chicken, but to evoke the sense of a satisfying meal. Curtiss made similar claims about Baby Ruth, which was advertised as both an “energy bar” and “a complete luncheon for 5 cents.”