question: Why do the political parties in the US called "Democrats" and "Republicans"?
comment: Republican Party: founding members chose the name in respect to Thomas Jefferson’s republicanism in the 1850s. Democratic Party: was originally the “Democratic-Republican Party” but split in 1824, and were originally called “The Democracy” until they decided on the Democratic Party in 1844.
passages: When the party split during the John Quincy Adams administration, initially its two successor parties both kept the word Republican in their names—Adams' faction used the term National Republicans while Jackson's faction used the term Democratic Republicans. However, Jackson's faction soon settled on the shorter name Democrats.
   National Public Radio (NPR) directed its staff in 2010 to use the adjective "Democratic" rather than "Democrat". According to Ron Elving, NPR's senior Washington editor, it was the organization's policy to call parties by the name that they use to refer to themselves, saying: "We should not refer to Democrat ideas or Democrat votes. Any deviation from that by NPR reporters on air or online should be corrected".
  
  Section::::Responses.
   Bush spoke of the "" in his 2007 State of the Union Address, although the advance copy that was given to members of Congress read "Democratic majority". Democrats complained about the use of "Democrat" as an adjective in the address; John Podesta, White House Chief of Staff under Bush's predecessor Bill Clinton, said it was "like nails on a chalkboard," although Congressional historian Julian E. Zelizer argued that "It's hard to disentangle whether that's an intentional slight". Political analyst Charlie Cook doubted it was a deliberate attempt to offend Democrats, saying Republicans "have been [using the term] so long that they probably don't even realize they're doing it".
   Delegates to the Democratic National Committee once proposed using "Publican Party" instead of "Republican Party". The committee failed to accept the proposal, "explaining that Republican is the name by which the our opponents' product is known and mistrusted". Sherman Yellen suggested "The Republicants" as suitably comparable in terms of negative connotation in an April 29, 2007 "Huffington Post" commentary.
  
  On the February 26, 2009 edition of "Hardball with Chris Matthews", California Republican Representative Darrell Issa referred to "a Democrat Congress". The host, Chris Matthews, responded by saying:
   Section::::Republican Party name.
  
  Political parties were new in the United States and people were not accustomed to having formal names for them. There was no single official name for the party, but party members generally called themselves Republicans and voted for what they called the "Republican party", "republican ticket" or "republican interest". Jefferson and Madison often used the terms "republican" and "Republican party" in their letters. The 1804 Convention of Republican members of Congress that renominated Jefferson described itself as a "regular republican caucus". The name Democratic-Republican was used by contemporaries only occasionally.
   In 1855, Bowles III called for the founding of a new party that would abolish slavery. He suggested the name "Republican". Once abolitionists founded a party by this name, "The Republican" became one if its most unrelenting supporters.
   The noun-as-adjective has been used by Republican leaders since the 1940s, and in most GOP national platforms since 1948. By the early 1950s, the term was in widespread use among Republicans of all factions. When Senator Thruston Ballard Morton became chairman of the Republican National Committee in 1959, he indicated that he had always said "Democratic Party" and would continue to do so, which contrasted with his predecessor, Meade Alcorn, and with National Republican Senatorial Committee chairman Barry Goldwater, both of whom used "Democrat Party". According to Congressional Quarterly, at the 1968 Republican National Convention "the GOP did revert to the epithet of 'Democrat' party. The phrase had been used in 1952 and 1956 but not in 1960 and 1964".
   During the 1984 Republican National Convention, use of the term was a point of contention among the delegates. When a member of the Republican platform committee asked unanimous consent to change the phrasing of a platform amendment to read "Democrat Party" instead of "Democratic Party", New York Representative Jack Kemp objected, saying that would be "an insult to our Democratic friends;" the committee dropped the proposal.
   In American history, many parties were named by their opponents (Federalists, Loco-Focos, Know Nothings, Populists, Dixiecrats), including the Democrats themselves, as the Federalists in the 1790s used "Democratic Party" as a term of ridicule. Addressing a gathering of Michigan Republicans in 1889, New Hampshire Republican Congressman Jacob H. Gallinger said:
  
  Section::::History.:Early 20th century.
   The 1919 "New Teachers' and Pupils' Cyclopaedia" entry for Woodrow Wilson states that "In 1912, Wilson was the Democrat Party nominee for President ..." In July 14, 1922, a newspaper in Keytesville, Missouri, posted an advertisement for its primary elections with the Democratic candidates identified as "Representing: Democrat Party".
  
  Section::::History.:Late 20th century.
   Following his inauguration in 2001, President George W. Bush often used the noun-as-adjective when referring to the Democratic Party. Ruth Marcus, an opinion writer and columnist for "The Washington Post", wrote in 2006, "The derisive use of 'Democrat' in this way was a Bush staple during the recent campaign".
   In 1996, the wording throughout the Republican Party platform was changed from "Democratic Party" to "Democrat Party": Republican leaders "explained they wanted to make the subtle point that the Democratic Party had become elitist". A proposal to use the term in the August 2008 Republican platform for similar reasons was voted down, with leaders choosing to use "Democratic Party". "We probably should use what the actual name is," said Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour, the panel's chairman. "At least in writing."
  
  Section::::History.:21st century.
   During the time that this party existed, it was usually referred to as the Republican Party. To distinguish it from the modern Republican Party (founded in 1854), historians, political scientists and pundits often refer to this party as the Democratic-Republican Party or the Jeffersonian Republican Party. When the modern Republican Party was founded in 1854, it deliberately chose to name itself after the Jeffersonians. In response, contemporary Democrats embraced the name "Democratic-Republican" to reinforce their party's claim to the party's pre-Jacksonian history. Modern Democratic politicians continue to claim Jefferson as their founder.
   Language expert Roy Copperud said it was used by Republicans who disliked the implication that "Democratic Party" implied to listeners that Democrats "are somehow the anointed custodians of the concept of democracy". According to Oxford Dictionaries, the use of "Democrat" rather than the adjective "Democratic" "is in keeping with a longstanding tradition among Republicans of dropping the "–ic" in order to maintain a distinction from the broader, positive associations of the adjective "democratic" with democracy and egalitarianism."
   The Democratic-Republican Party splintered in 1824 into the short-lived National Republican Party and the Jacksonian movement which in 1828 became the Democratic Party. Under the Jacksonian era, the term "The Democracy" was in use by the party, but the name "Democratic Party" was eventually settled upon and became the official name in 1844. Members of the party are called "Democrats" or "Dems".
  
  The term "Democrat Party" has also been in local use, but has usually been used by opponents since 1952 as a disparaging term.
   Among authors of dictionaries and usage guides who state that the use of "Democrat" as an adjective is ungrammatical are Roy H. Copperud, Bergen Evans, and William and Mary Morris. Morris and Morris argue, "it is the idiotic creation of some of the least responsible members of the Republican Party."
  
  Ruth Walker, the long-time language columnist for the "Christian Science Monitor", while stating that "Democratic" is the correct term in most instances, in 2005 placed the adjectival use of "Democrat" within a broader trend: 
  
  According to the British newspaper "The Economist", 
  
  Section::::History.
  
  Section::::History.:19th century.
   According to William Safire, Minnesota Governor Harold Stassen, campaign manager to Republican Wendell Willkie during the 1940 presidential campaign, explained that because the Democratic Party was at that time partly controlled by undemocratic city bosses, "by Hague in New Jersey, Pendergast in Missouri and Kelly-Nash in Chicago, [it] should not be called a 'Democratic Party.' It should be called the 'Democrat Party.'"
  
  Columnist Russell Baker wrote in 1976: 
   Bush joked about the issue in a February 4, 2007 speech to House Democrats, stating "Now look, my diction isn't all that good. I have been accused of occasionally mangling the English language. And so I appreciate you inviting the head of the Republic Party."
   Earl Killian's U.S. political glossary defines the term as "a portmanteau of the words "Republican" and "Democrat"...used to symbolize the one-party nature of U.S. politics, when it comes to issues on which the dominant parties of the two-party system agree...In this view...Republicrats is then the name of the single U.S. political party, and the Republicans and Democrats are seen as factions of this one-party system, rather than as true independent parties."
   Newt Gingrich, in his efforts in the 1980s and 1990s to produce a Republican majority in the United States House of Representatives, relied heavily on words and phrases that cast Democrats in a negative light. The phrase "Democrat Party" gained new currency when the Republican Party, led by Gingrich, gained control of the House of Representatives in 1994.
   During the elections for this Congress, opponents to the Democrats used the Whig party label inconsistently and not at all in some states. Hence in this Congress, and in accordance with the practice of the Senate and House, representatives not associated with the Democratic Party or the American Party are labeled as "Opposition." This is the first example in U.S. history of a form of coalition government in either house of Congress.
  
  Section::::Party summary.:House of Representatives.
  
  The parties that opposed the Democrats joined a coalition and formed the majority. The Know Nothings caucused with the Opposition coalition.
  
  Section::::Leadership.
  
  Section::::Leadership.:Senate.
   Section::::History.:Media organizations.
  
  According to Media Matters for America, the "ungrammatical" and "partisan" use of the phrase "Democrat Party" has been replicated by the Associated Press, "CNN", "The New York Times", "The Wall Street Journal", and the "Chicago Tribune".
   Section::::Similar terms.:Nixonians, and Rockefeller Republicans.
  
  In the 1960s and 1970s, Republicans considered liberal on domestic policy but hawkish on foreign policy were sometimes called "Nixonian", or "Rockefeller Republicans". While the term "Nixonian" took on other meanings after the Watergate scandal, neither expression had always been considered pejorative.
  
  Section::::Similar terms.:Gypsy moth Republican.
   As a general term (not a party name), the word republican had been in widespread usage from the 1770s to describe the type of government the break-away colonies wanted to form: a republic of three separate branches of government derived from some principles and structure from ancient republics; especially the emphasis on civic duty and the opposition to corruption, elitism, aristocracy and monarchy. The word is used in the United States Constitution.
  
  Section::::Legacy.
   Note: This was the first time political parties appeared in the United States. Before the question of establishing a federal government, or not, arose, all candidatures had been personal. Now, politicians aligned in two opposing groups: First those in favor of the establishment of a federal government and those against it, and then - after the federal government had been indeed established - those who supported it and those who did not. The first group are generally known as the Federalists, or (as a group in Congress) the "Pro-Administration Party." The second group at first were called the Anti-Federalists, or (as a group in Congress) the "Anti-Administration Party", but soon called themselves "Republicans." However, at the same time, the Federalists called them "Democrats" which was meant to be pejorative. After some time both terms got more and more confused, and sometimes used together as "Democratic Republicans" which later historians have adopted (with a hyphen) to describe the party from the beginning, to avoid confusion with both the later established and still existing Democratic and Republican parties.
  