Donuts

According to the history of the doughnut, it first came into being as a result of wondering what to do with the leftover scraps of dough. In England, they dropped the bits into soup or water, and made dumplings. But in Holland and in Germany, cooks dropped the extra into boiling oil, and made fry-cakes, or olie-koecken. The Dutch fancied up their leftovers a bit more by shaping them into decorative knots (dough knots), and rolling in sugar afterwards. Dough Knots might have been then translated to Dough Nuts?

Another theory on how Dough Nuts were called nuts…There is a very popular half-truth in doughnut lore centered on a very real sea captain and his mother. In 1847, Elizabeth Gregory was known in her New England circle to make a very fine olykoek. (Olykoek is the name from Holland meaning oily cakes.) Her secret was to add a hint of nutmeg and fill the center with hazelnuts or walnuts. She even had a special name for her creation -- dough-nuts.

A third, more plausible explanation of the name early recipes instructed amateur chefs to create "little nuts of dough" and place these balls into the hot oil.

Eastern europeans make a version called "chrustiki" where the rolled-out dough is cut into strips about 1 inch wide and 5 inches long... a 2-inch cut is made lengthwise in the middle of the strip, then one end is pulled/drawn through the cut, which forms a knot.
And then the dough"knot" is fried.