Before it sold sneakers, a footlocker held a soldier's belongings. Merriam-Webster defines it as "a small trunk designed to be placed at the foot of a bed (as in a barracks)." The shoe chain took that ordinary word and gave it a second job.
The older half is locker. Etymonline dates it to the late 14th century, meaning a small chest that can be locked. It was used especially by groups of men living together, on ships or in military regiments. The school-hallway locker is a 20th-century sense.
The compound is American and military. Merriam-Webster dates its first known use to 1882, while Etymonline gives 1905 and labels it U.S. military. Wikipedia explains the name simply: the trunks typically sat at the foot of a soldier's bunk. The U.S. Marine Corps still uses the term in recruit training. During the Second World War some were even made of cardboard.
The retailer arrived much later. F.W. Woolworth, the five-and-dime company, owned the Kinney Shoe Corporation, a chain of family shoe stores. Kinney's shoe division opened the first two Foot Locker stores in 1974. Wikipedia gives the launch date as September 12, 1974, at Puente Hills Mall in City of Industry, California. The new chain specialized in athletic shoes.
None of the company histories cited here record who chose the name or why. Its staff uniforms came to resemble referees' shirts, a sporting touch the word itself lacked.
The shoe store eventually swallowed its parent. Kinney's Canadian arm started Lady Foot Locker in 1982. Woolworth renamed itself Venator Group in 1998. In 2001 it took the name of its best-performing chain and became Foot Locker, Inc. A company whose roots went back to a "Great 5¢ Store" opened in Utica, New York, in 1879 ended up named after an army trunk.
The story has one more turn. Dick's Sporting Goods agreed to buy Foot Locker in May 2025, and the deal closed that September.