American Swiss cheese developed from Emmental cheese.
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It is odd, but people often confuse Emmenthaler and Gruyere.
Even in Italian (just across the border!) it was not uncommon to hear expressions like "full of holes like groviera", and it seems in French it's the same based on the existence of this Wikipedia page https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradoxe_du_fromage_%C3%A0_tro...
Language is just strange.
They also have their own “Gruyère” - different from the Swiss one and with holes - in France:
https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gruy%C3%A8re_fran%C3%A7ais
They also have a cheese similar to the Gruyère from Switzerland, but with a different name (the Gruyère part dropped from the name over time):
I'm French and it apparently took more than four decades for me to TIL that we have our own Gruyère.
I always assumed we were just calling Emmental the wrong thing. Then again most of what we call Gruyère is a somewhat industrialized store-bought thing that arguably tastes like neither Emmental not Gruyère (but at least it has holes, I guess). And to boot, I'm pretty sure we call "Gruyère" some of the products that are labeled as Emmental anyway.
In retrospect, it makes sense we'd have our "own" given how finicky we are with names (of things we produce).
Edit: turns out we've also bastardized Emmental anyway.
There's also a tight branding and trademark component.
I remember a major ad campaign when proper imported "Emmental" was rebranded as "Emmentaler" because the former name was becoming generic, and a related ad campaign about positioning and promoting Emmentaler as one of several kinds of "Swiss Cheese" along with Gruyere, Sbrinz and maybe a fourth one I don't recollect.
> proper imported "Emmental" was rebranded as "Emmentaler"
It’s also called Emmentaler (from Emmental) in Switzerland.
"Emmental", also misspelled "Emmenthal", remains the common name in Italy, non to mention the name of various imitations.
As a Swiss, confusing Emmenthaler and Gruyere is wild - they're soooo different in just about any property except both being called cheese. And I personally believe Emmenthaler to be the worst cheese produced in Switzerland. The only thing it has going for it are the iconic holes. Gruyere on the other hand is up there with the best of Swiss cheeses.
I kinda love that someone who wrote that article was like "this needs a table for clarity!"