"The word polka is a borrowing from Czech, where it means 'a Polish woman'; it is the feminine of Polák 'a Pole'. Despite the Polish reference, the polka itself was of Bohemian origin. Introduced into Prague in 1831, the dance was named in tribute to the (unsuccessful) Polish rebellion against the Russians in 1830.
The polka dot is a dot repeated regularly to form a pattern. It was so named not because of any Polish origin, or even because of any popularity of the pattern among polka dancers, but because of the popularity of the dance itself. The polka was such a hit in mid-nineteenth century England that the word polka was attached to various commercial products without any real connection to the dance: "The polka was so popular," wrote a historian in 1898, "that it absorbed every other dance for a time. Articles of food, of clothing and of ornament, were named after it.""
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