Still more phrase-frequency charts from the indefatigable Google Books Ngram Reader:
— Jesse Helms vs. Terry Sanford and Sam Ervin
— Old North State vs. Tar Heel State. Only now has Tar Heel State become the more common usage? There’s something here I’m not getting.
— redneck vs. white trash and hillbilly
— Marshal Ney. His execution in 1815 apparently accounts for the first spike, his supposed reappearance as a North Carolina schoolteacher for the second.