You can thank Philly for the world of Black Friday. The city of Brotherly Love seems to be where the name comes from. The Philadelphia police department gave it that name because of the massive amounts of traffic on the day following Thanksgiving. As you see in this snippet of a column from 1966 in the “The American Philatelist,” JANUARY 1966 — “Black Friday” is the name which the Philadelphia Police Department has given to the Friday following Thanksgiving Day. It is not a term of endearment to them. “Black Friday” officially opens the Christmas shopping season in center city,