Guingamp

Two countries claim this fabric's name, and the earliest cloth backs the one without the town.

One account derives it from Malay genggang, meaning striped or ajar, by way of Dutch traders; the other from Guingamp in Brittany, a weaving town. Most dictionaries now prefer the Malay origin, and the earliest English gingham was striped rather than checked, which fits it. The checks arrived later, from Manchester mills in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.