Where did the term “paddy wagon” come from?
another is the flip side of the coin – it was named for the many Irish that were being arrested and hauled off in the wagons. At any rate, Paddy, being short for Padraic or Patrick, became a slang term for the Irish. Yet another theory is simply that the inner walls of the wagon were padded to prevent injury, hence “paddy.” The use of “paddy wagon” as a slang term for a police van dates back to the 1920’s, and seems to have originated in either New York City or Philadelphia, cities which had both large Irish immigrant populations and largely Irish-American police forces during that period.
