When?

[Big Don]

At what point was World War I first commonly called World War I?
At what point was World War II first commonly called World War II?

Who first coined the terms, or is that lost to history?
Yes, my google fu is weak.

 

[Sukerkin]

Sometimes the way you phrase the question can jiggle the search engines elbow and get a result - this is what I found (on Wiki):

The term "World War I" was invented by Timemagazine in its issue of June 12, 1939.[SUP][3][/SUP] In that same issue, the term World War II was first used speculatively by Time magazine to describe the upcoming war.[SUP][4][/SUP] The first use for the actual war came in its issue of September 11, 1939;[SUP][5][/SUP] one week earlier, the Danish newspaper Kristeligt Dagblad used the term on its front page on September 4, 1939, saying, "The second World War broke out yesterday at 11 a.m

However, I also found this:

After the onset of the Second World War in 1939, the terms World War I or the First World War became standard, with British and Canadian historians favouring the First World War, and Americans World War I. The term "First World War" was first used in September 1914 by the German philosopher Ernst Haeckel, who claimed that "there is no doubt that the course and character of the feared 'European War' ... will become the first world war in the full sense of the word."[SUP][19][/SUP] The First World War was also the title of a 1920 history by the officer and journalist Charles à Court Repington

 

[Big Don]

Thanks! I'm rereading W.E.B. Griffin's "The Corps" which, follows a group of Marines through WWII and Korea and this was bugging me.

 

[arnisador]

Heh, I googled this same question a few months ago while reading a book on WWII by John Keegan (who addressed the issue in passing).