On the surface, this one's pretty obvious. If you're going to write a nostalgic song about "the Southland," what better title could you possibly hope to choose than "Sweet Home Alabama"? What better way to defend the South's honor against its critics than to emphasize its most fundamental values, home and family?
Digging a bit deeper, there is an interesting question here: If none of the members of Lynyrd Skynyrd were actually from Alabama—they were mostly from Florida—why isn't the song called "Sweet Home Florida"? Besides the obvious fact that "Sweet Home Florida" just doesn't roll off the tongue in quite the same way, the choice of Alabama helped Skynyrd to frame the tune more obviously as a response to Neil Young's two songs of anti-southern social criticism—"Southern Man" and… wait for it… "Alabama."
Digging a bit deeper, there is an interesting question here: If none of the members of Lynyrd Skynyrd were actually from Alabama—they were mostly from Florida—why isn't the song called "Sweet Home Florida"? Besides the obvious fact that "Sweet Home Florida" just doesn't roll off the tongue in quite the same way, the choice of Alabama helped Skynyrd to frame the tune more obviously as a response to Neil Young's two songs of anti-southern social criticism—"Southern Man" and… wait for it… "Alabama."