Why was that game called hopscotch?

Question

Why was that game called hopscotch,and why did mostly girls play it?

Answer 1

All the kids, boys and girls played it when I was growing up in the 70's.  

Girls perhaps played it more because they spent less time doing other things like exploring, cycling, marbles and football.

There are similarities between hopscotch and skipping.  Boys occassionally skipped but it was far more an activity  for girls.  They espescially liked singing along I suspect.

Answer 2

The "scotch" part is to scratch the squares in the dirt to play the game. Boys do play it to a lesser extent. When I was a a kid there were two different versions. The regular grid and a rectangular one. The rectangular one was played by Catholics because the regular version looked too much like a cross.

Answer 3

The word "hopscotch" is a compound of "hop" and "scotch", meaning "scratched line". It dates back to at least 1801 where it was played by the african slaves with the only tools they had dirt and stone.

In Czech (and probably in other Slavonic languages), both "hop" and "scotch" are rather childish expressions for "make a jump". The "hop" is injection referenced to jumping, the "scotch" (correctly "skoč") is 2. person sing. of imperative, i.e. "jump!" But the game itself is called panák in Czech