Why I am an Evangelical, and why our Church wears that name.
The earliest solid reference I can find to someone being referred to as an evangelical, is in a 15th century label attached to John Wycliffe, often described as the “Morningstar of the Reformation. He was called “doctor evangelicus.” The term gained more popularity early in Lutheran side of the Reformation and spread from there. Men wanting to associate themselves with the recovery of the gospel in terms of its central doctrine of justification by faith called themselves evangelici viri” – evangelical men. Luther liked and used the expression in German as die Evangelischen.
