I've seen a large axe weapon known as a 'greataxe' show up in numerous games and shows, but I'm wondering if there's any truth to it, and where the idea came from. From my limited (and mostly secondhand) knowledge on medieval weaponry, it seems like most axes used as weaponry were specifically quite small, with the dane axe being perhaps the largest historical example I've seen mention of. The greateaxe seems to be depicted with a large head and sometimes a short haft, as differentiated from a halberd or poleaxe, which have longer hafts and usually normal sized axe heads, if any. Thank you!
I've never seen any real historical weapons that match what a great axe or 'battle axe' typically appear as in video games. At a certain point in size, the axe always just becomes a polearm. Given Dungeons and Dragons mis-categorization of the Longsword as a one handed sword, when in reality it was a two handed weapon that would be painfully unwieldly in one hand, I would suggest that perhaps it's origins are rooted there, as the fantasy genre has been heavily inspired by DnD.