@KenJennings of Jeopardy fame tweets:
What is going on where we are suddenly calling redheads “gingers”? People, we won the Revolutionary War, we don’t have to put up with this.
Hey, Ken, you may be the king of all trivia but you have to brush up your NOOBs: Ginger is the second most all-time most popular entry on this blog. (FYI, bits is first and wanker is third.) You and any other interested party can sort out what’s going on with ginger here.
notoneoffbritishisms.com 
This just in: apparently today is National Ginger Awareness Day: http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=National+Ginger+Awareness+Day
Series premiere of “Awake” tonight on NBC, rookie detective reviewing tapes for a red-haired perp, says, “Alright, Ginger, where are you?”
Ginger in Scotland is also a generic word for any carbonated drink. It was universally used there about forty years ago, but then started to lose ground to non-Scottish words such as ‘soda’ and ‘pop’. It is now making a bit of a comeback and seems to be on the increase among people who want to show pride in their Scottish heritage. The following Scottish ad scorns the American term ‘soda pop’ and makes it clear that the real word is ‘ginger’.