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Chess was invented in India during the sixth century. The game was calledchaturanga,and when it migratedto Persia (around 700 AD), it was called chatrang, which was derived from the players exclaiming shh mt! (the king is helpless or dead). And that, you will immediately recognize, is the origin of the modern termcheckmate.

If you want to know more about the migration of the game around the world, you should readFrank Jacobs' 2017 articleHow Chess Went Global. It includes thismap, which you can click to enlarge.

Chaturanga is Sanskrit for four-limbed, referring to the four sections of the Indian army: infantry, cavalry, elephants and chariots. This is reflected more or less recognizably in the piece names. In his articleHow Did the Chess Pieces Get Their Names?, which appeared on April 21, 2023, Frank Jacobs meticulously traces the various piece names in different languages around the world. Here's a summary:

Pawns:the original Sanskrit padati, or foot soldier, came to us via the Latin pedester to modern French pionand English pawn. The Spanish term peon also means farmer, which is reflected in a number of Germanic languages, e.g. bonde in Danish, or Bauer in German.

Knight:in the original Chaturangathe piece wascalled asva, which is Sanskrit for horse. It reflects the unique ability of the piece to jump over other pieces. In this case the piece name tends to universally reflect this ability: cavallo in Spanish, springare in Swedish, Springer in German.

Rook:it was called ratha (chariot) in Sanskrit, rukh in Persian. In many European languages the piece is known as a tower or a castle e.g. German Turm. English stuck with rook, but invented "to castle" for the king-and-rook move. Puzzlingly the piece is called ship (or boat) in some other languages, including Russian (ladj) and Armenian (navak).

Bishop:this piece has the widest range of names. It started off as theSanskrit hasti, for elephant, changed to the Persian pil, theFrench fil,and finally fou, which translates to fool.The Italians call it alfiere (standard bearer), the Germany call it Lufer(runner), the Serbians lovac (hunter), Slovak strelec (gunner). The Russians have stuck to the original elephant and call the piece slon.In his article Jacobs has very useful maps for each piece, like the following for the bishop (click to enlarge):

Queen:Originally this piece was the kings counselor (mantri in Sanskrit). The Arabs used wazir (vizier), which became the French vierge (virgin), which became regina (queen) and dame (lady) in various languages.

King:the games central piece maintained its original title. Rajahis Sanskrit for king. The Russiand call it korl, theGermans Knig, Yiddish kinig.

Frank Jacobs'originalarticle originally appeared on Big Think, home of the brightest minds and biggest ideas of all time.

Read more:
The names of chess pieces - ChessBase