"Pop" Was Coined by a British Poet
In 1812, English poet Robert Southey wrote a letter describing a new fizzy drink he'd encountered, calling it "pop" specifically because "pop goes the cork when it is drawn." It's a purely onomatopoeic word — literally named after the sharp sound the bottle made when opened, nothing more elaborate than that. Today, "pop" is stereotyped as a distinctly American Midwest term, largely thanks to regional bottling companies who built the word directly into their branding and marketing over a century after Southey's letter. The word's own thoroughly British-born origin has been almost entirely forgotten in the process, buried under a century and a half of American regional identity built on top of it.
Documented via Etymonline and corroborated by research published in the Journal of English Linguistics.
Where "Soda" Comes From
"Soda" traces back further and more directly to the drink's actual underlying chemistry rather than any sound or coincidence. The term originates from "soda water" — carbonated water historically associated with sodium-containing minerals found naturally in certain springs, long before anyone was manufacturing carbonation artificially. We cover the fuller story of carbonation's accidental 1767 discovery, and how "soda water" went on to become a genuine commercial product in its own right, in our guide on what soft drinks actually are. "Soda" simply stuck as convenient shorthand once fizzy, mineral-associated water became widely and commercially available to the general public.
How the Vocabulary Actually Evolved
A Third Word Muddies the Picture Further
"Coke" adds a genuinely different kind of complication to this story, since it isn't a generic descriptive word at all — it's a trademarked brand name that simply became so dominant in one region that people started using it to mean any carbonated soft drink, regardless of the actual brand in the can. This happened specifically in the American South, where Coca-Cola originated and grew overwhelmingly popular early on, to the point that asking for "a coke" there might just as easily get you a Sprite or a Dr Pepper as an actual Coca-Cola, with the follow-up question "what kind?" doing the real work of narrowing things down.
America's Famous Regional Divide
Cambridge linguist Bert Vaux's well-known dialect survey mapped exactly where each term dominates across the United States, and the split turns out to be strikingly clean by region, closely tracking each area's own commercial and cultural history.
So Where Does the UK Actually Sit?
Neither word dominates British English the way "soda" or "pop" dominate their specific American regions. "Fizzy drink" is generally the most neutral, widely used default across the UK as a whole, appearing naturally in everyday conversation regardless of where you are in the country. "Pop" survives as a genuinely common informal term in parts of Britain, particularly associated with Northern England and often carrying a slightly nostalgic, homely feel to it. "Soda" is understood everywhere but tends to read as slightly American-influenced when used casually in conversation about a fizzy drink generally, more commonly appearing in specific compound terms like "soda water" or "soda stream" rather than functioning as a catch-all word the way "pop" or "fizzy drink" do.
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