The Fancy Dutch, also known as the High Dutch, and historically as the Pennsylvania High Germans, are the Pennsylvania Dutch who do not belong to Plain Dutch sects. Unlike the Amish, the conservative Dunkards, or Old Order Mennonites, they do not wear plain clothing, and they fight in wars. Many popularly associated characteristics of Pennsylvania Dutch culture, including spielwerk, hex signs, and other aspects of Pennsylvania Dutch art, music, and folklore, are derived from the Fancy Dutch. The tourism industry and mainstream media often erroneously attribute such contributions to the more conservative Plain Dutch, though they would reject these aspects of their more worldly Fancy counterparts.

The Amish, formally the Old Order Amish, are a group of traditionalist Anabaptist Christian church fellowships with Swiss German and Alsatian origins. As they maintain a degree of separation from surrounding populations, and hold their faith in common, the Amish have been described by certain scholars as an ethnoreligious group, combining features of an ethnicity and a Christian denomination. The Amish are closely related to Old Order Mennonites and Conservative Mennonites—denominations that are also a part of Anabaptist Christianity. The Amish are known for simple living, plain dress, Christian pacifism, and slowness to adopt many conveniences of modern technology, with a view neither to interrupt family time, nor replace face-to-face conversations whenever possible, and a view to maintain self-sufficiency. The Amish value rural life, manual labor, humility and Gelassenheit.