Where did the term Latin square come from?

If that question piqued your interest, you might want to follow up at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latin_squares

But the short answer is that the mathematician who is credited with the first academic work with Latin squares used Greek and Latin characters in the squares, and that he called them Graeco-Latin Squares (or Latin squares when only Latin characters were used in the squares).


(Apparently, Latin squares draw from Magic Squares, a very old Islamic puzzle game in which the numbers 1-9 are arranged in rows/columns of three in which each number is used once and only once and the diagonals must equal 15. And you thought sudoku was a new-ish game!)