Episode 1 of 4

Naming in Baltimore

When: 1890
Where: Baltimore
Part of: First commercial release of the Ouija board by Elijah Bond

The name "Ouija" was chosen in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1890 by Helen Peters Nosworthy.

Medium and spiritualist Helen Peters Nosworthy selected the name for the board in Baltimore. The building where this naming occurred still stands in downtown Baltimore. This event established the brand identity for the commercial product.

Sources

Ouija Wikipedia, revision of 2026-10-01
Elijah Bond Wikipedia, revision of 2026-08-30

Machine-drafted from the cited Wikipedia passages and checked by a reviewing model, not by a human editor. Every passage cites the revision it was written from; dates and places follow those passages.