The 6 strangest ways classic board games got their names

Some board games have straightforward names—Life and Monopoly explain themselves (though they were originally called The Checkered Game of Life and The Landlord’s Game). There are a few games, however, that defy easy explanation. These classic games got their names in really weird ways, which really just adds to the fun.

1. Ouija’s spooky origin includes a ghost

Ouija Board

Ouija boards get dusty today, but at one point they were at the center of a spiritualist fad. An added selling point? The name came from a ghost.

Like many origin stories, the Ouija naming tale blends fact and marketing fiction, but it’s spooky enough to bother sharing. According to a great history of Ouija, most people believe the name is a combination of the French oui and German ja. The creators, however, had a different story.

Ouija board inventor Elijah Bond said his sister-in-law, Helen Peters, came up with the name. She asked the board what the game should be called, and the group’s trembling hands revealed O-U-I-J-A. When they asked what it meant, the board said “good luck.” Complicating matters, Peters said she was wearing a locket with a picture of a strange woman in it. The name above the picture? Ouija.

Is the story true? It’s hard to tell, but it comes from the founders’ letters to each other, so at least one set of people believed it.

2. Yahtzee’s a pun

Yahtzee Game

Crying out “Yahtzee!” feels so natural that it seems like it must be a real word. But it’s just a riff on the yacht where the game was born.

There are many games similar to Yahtzee, of course, but the game we love and know has a clear origin. As described in Marvin Kaye’s classic A Toy Is Born, a Canadian couple invented the game when they were boating in Bermuda. They contacted a game manufacturer and gave away the rights in return for free copies.

The anonymous couple called their invention The Yacht Game, and Edmund Lowe (the same man who popularized Bingo) changed the name to Yahtzee. Yahtzee’s success wasn’t immediate, but salesman held Yahtzee Parties for toy buyers and sales picked up until word of mouth made the game break out. The couple got a thousand free copies of the game, and Lowe got an international hit. It now sells 50 million copies a year.

3. Clue’s perfect name isn’t the same everywhere

Cluedo

Readers in the UK will already know about this odd naming choice. The classic game Clue isn’t called that in the UK—there, it’s Cluedo.

Yes, Cluedo. Originally called Murder!, the game was first played in shelters during air raids. When British gamemaker Waddingtons bought the rights to the game, they renamed it Cluedo. The reason? It was supposed to be a combination of Clue and ludo, which is Latin for I play.

Fortunately, when Parker Brothers brought the game to the United States they renamed it Clue, though Cluedo is still the game’s name outside of North America.

4. Risk might be named for some little kids

Risk

This story is tough to swallow because Risk is the perfect name for the classic world-conquering game. Still, quite a few people believe that the ultimate war game was named for some little kids.

We do know this: French movie producer Albert Lamorisse (the man behind The Red Balloon) invented the game and called it La Conquete du Monde. From there, his Conquer the World game took off, but according to The Game Makers, the name wasn’t unique enough for the hungry United States market. That’s why Parker Brothers salesman Elwood Reeves renamed it RISK! The twist is that he chose the name because each letter was an initial of one of his four grandchildren.

While it’s tough to track down the truth behind that story, we do know Parker Brothers made some big improvements to the game. Before coming to the United States, Risk didn’t have multiple dice. Yes, Risk used to take even longer to play.

5. Othello was inspired by a Japanese Shakespeare scholar

Othello

Othello had a perfectly good name already: Reversi. But in the 1970s, a Japanese game company wanted to market it on their own. They chose the name Othello, and its Shakespearean resonance isn’t a coincidence.

That’s because the name was selected by salesman Goro Hasegawa, whose father was actually a Shakespearean scholar and chose the name. Of course, the name is a rather blunt allusion to Othello’s relationship between black and white, all played on a board of green, for jealousy.

As Hasegawa’s father noted, it is a game of “dramatic reversals.” One of Othello’s most surprising twists might be that it involves Shakespeare at all.

6. Jenga is Swahili, but the game is a Brit’s invention

Jenga

Leslie Scott is the mastermind behind Jenga, and she shares the game’s story in her book and on her website. In a recent interview, she revealed the story behind Jenga’s name.

Jenga is Swahili for build, and Scott knew she wanted to borrow the word for her game. But the game itself isn’t a Swahili classic—it’s a game Scott and her British family played when they were living in East Africa (though what they played is possibly a variation of a different game called Takaradi). She knew the name was unique, and that was the appeal (fortunately, she refused to let Jenga’s publishers change it to something more generic).

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