This article deals with the history of the names of playing cards – it is an attempt to chronologically organize the terms that still function in Polish, although they appeared in different periods, in different socio-cultural circumstances and have a diverse etymology. The field of analysis includes material of a twofold nature: the material basis is the official, commonly used names of cards, while this lexicon resource has been expanded to include informal names – colloquial or found locally in dialects. Sometimes the indication of the origin of a name is quite simple, even obvious; however, it can sometimes cause difficulties, and certainly give rise to doubts. Therefore, the author included the phrase “theses and hypotheses” in the title of the article – he is aware that some theories are debatable.