Who Invented the High Five?

You might have won a trophy and celebrated it by raising your hand high towards your teammates. You might be thinking that high five has been around for ages. But, the fact is that the Oxford English Dictionary included this term as a noun in 1980 and as a verb in 1981. This name comes from the fact that you raise five fingers in the air.

This word up high in itself may sound like a celebration. When we do high five, your arm reaches up over your head and slap the elevated palm and five fingers of another person. It is being said that gestures like high five improve the bond between teammates, which has a positive effect on the entire team.

As per the sources, there are two origins from where high five comes, which are baseball and basketball. Earlier people presumed that the first high five took place on October 2, 1977, in Dodger stadium between Glenn Burke and Dusty Baker of L.A Dodgers. They were pleased after making a particular record and did high five. It was just a sudden reaction as they slapped their hands up in the air, and it became history.

This is yet another source where high five came. It was between two basketball players, namely Wiley Brown and Derek Smith, during the 1978-79 season. They were seen doing low five in a practice session. Amongst African Americans, low five was very famous at that time, but Smith said Brow no low five; it should be a high five.

These two stories got famous simultaneously in a different area of sports. After this, its popularity escalated, and people started making t-shirts with high five printed on it, and high fives were given throughout the game to celebrate every small victory.

In fact, you would be surprised to know that a Turkish artist named Deniz Ozuygur created a Self High Five machine that was launched in 2010 in New York. Also, a high five day is celebrated on the third Thursday in April every year. The good thing is it spreads fewer germs than a handshake, as per a study.