History of Ping Pong

Many people hold the wrong notion that table tennis originated in China, because the Chinese name ping pong is also used for the sport and because the Chinese dominate the game nowadays. However, ping pong was actually started by the upper class Victorian gentlemen in the 1880s in England, as an after dinner indoor relaxation, mimicking outdoor tennis. They used day-to-day objects, like using a line of books as the net, a knot of strings or a rounded top of a Champagne bottle cork as the ball and a cigar box lid as the racket. The name ‘ping pong’ was derived from the sound when the sport was played. That name was trademarked by an English table tennis equipment manufacturer, J. Jaques & Son Ltd. in 1901.