If you walk into a soft-serve shack in New England, an old-school bakery in Philly, or a roadside dairy bar in the Midwest, you might think ordering this particular topping is a universally understood transaction. But you’d be dead wrong. Asking for a handful of tiny sugary bits is something of a linguistic tell. One single word, and you instantly label yourself as either a proud local or a clueless tourist who wandered too far from the highway.

Here is the breakdown of what America calls those tiny rods of colored sugar, where those bizarre names came from, and why your order gives away your region faster than your zip code.

Sprinkles

The first, and most universal is obviously “sprinkles.” 80% of the United States (West Coast, Midwest, South, and general non-Northeast territory) use this term to describe the multicolored sugary topping. They are waxy, crunch softly, and look cheerful on a scoop of vanilla. 

For centuries, a "sprinkle" wasn't a food—it was just an action. You sprinkled salt, water, or sugar. Before mass production, these tiny treats had wild, chaotic names like "sugar grains," "decorating candy," or the deeply unappetizing "chocolate mites." By the 1930s, industrial manufacturers threw their hands up, named the product directly after the action used to throw them onto cake batter, and called it a day.

Saying "sprinkles" anywhere west of the Hudson River is generally safe. But say it at a roadside stand in Massachusetts, and the teenager behind the counter will give you a weird look.

Jimmies

 

If you’re from Massachusetts, parts of Rhode Island and New Hampshire, Maine, and down into the Philadelphia metro area, you call them “jimmies” and you are adamant that this is the correct name. New England purists insist that true jimmies are chocolate only, while "sprinkles" refers to the rainbow variety (though modern Bostonians often use it for both). Legend says the Just Born candy company—the folks who make Peeps—invented them in the 1930s and named them after Jimmy Bartholomew, the worker operating the sprinkle machine. Another theory points to Brigham's ice cream shop in Boston, which charged an extra penny for chocolate toppings to benefit the famous Jimmy Fund cancer charity. A third theory ties it to "jim-jams," early 1900s slang for tiny items.

An internet rumor claims "jimmies" has racist origins tied to Jim Crow laws. This is completely false. Linguists, Snopes, and the Dictionary of American Regional English have debunked this extensively. There is zero historical record of the word being used as a slur before the myth took off online in the late 1990s. So order your chocolate jimmies in Quincy without an ounce of guilt.

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Shots (or Chocolate Shots)

Pockets of Connecticut, Upstate New York, and Eastern Canada call these confections “shots” or “chocolate shots”. Unlike modern sprinkles, early 20th-century chocolate toppings were dark, dense, and slightly uneven. They looked shockingly similar to lead birdshot or buckshot stored in a hunter's pouch. Because ice cream scoopers poured them over vanilla scoops in the exact same motion a hunter loaded a firearm, "shots" were born. The term is fading fast, but vintage New England stands still keep it proudly on their wooden menu boards.

Decorettes

Bakeries, old-school commercial cake decorating catalogs, and mid-century New England/Mid-Atlantic recipes call them decorettes. It’s fancy, slightly pretentious, and sounds like something your grandmother kept in a glass spice jar next to the lard. "Decorettes" was a trademarked marketing term invented to make mass-produced, edible wax-and-sugar rods sound like high art. It smashed together "decor" with the French diminutive suffix -ette (meaning small or dainty, like kitchenette). The goal was purely commercial: convince professional bakers that they were buying sophisticated "edible industrial decor" rather than ordinary sugar scraps. Nowadays, if you walk into an ice cream parlor and ask for decorettes anywhere, you might get some weird looks.

Hundreds and Thousands / Nonpareils

Unlike the rod-shaped Jimmies or Sprinkles, these are spherical tiny dots made of sugar and starch and go by “Hundreds and Thousands” or Nonpareils. Drop a jar of these on a tile floor and you will be sweeping up sweet mini-marbles until the year 2040. These aren't the rod-shaped sprinkles—they are tiny, rock-hard sugar spheres. "Hundreds and Thousands" started in 19th-century Britain as pure, dramatic hyperbole describing the uncountable dots in a single scoop. The term hitched a ride on trade ships and landed in historic East Coast port towns. Meanwhile, "Nonpareils" comes from the French phrase for "without equal." French bakers thought the tiny decorative spheres were so exquisite that no other topping could compare.

Next time you order your soft-serve, pay attention to the menu board. Whether you're topping your cone with Jimmies, Shots, or standard-issue Sprinkles, just remember: as long as it's 90% sugar and wax, you're doing it right. Which sugar topping camp do you belong to?

Looking for the best jimmies? Check these out: https://www.hilliardscandy.com/products/real-chocolate-jimmies?srsltid=AfmBOoogjtkmSU2r3rG3ngC5VsmdOd9MtkWLjBXb0MKiO-zbSpIEIdVi

      - Maddy