Despite its name, the game is not a variation of checkers, nor did it come from China. The game was invented in Germany in 1892 as a variation of the older American game Halma (1884).

The name Chinese Checkers originated in the United States as a marketing scheme in 1928. A Chinese Checkers craze swept across America in the 1930s. In the spring of 1938, the Ballard Manufacturing Company of Topeka, Kansas, shipped around 15,000 Star Checkers games a month (including 500,000 to 700,000 marbles) to Woolworth Stores nationwide.

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