How About A Polka, Dot?

I just got a fabulous ankle long DVF silk dress on an end of season sale, and it's everything I hoped it would be.  Luscious silk to the touch, beautiful cut, it actually fits, and it's a great deal.  Win, win, win, win.  But the best part, by my standards, is the color.  Or colors.  Because while it's polka dot all over, it's made of four or five different color polka dot fabrics sewn together in a colorful, super-flattering way.

I am one generation away from circus folk and also one generation away from unrepentant hippies, so it's only natural that a multi-colored patchwork maxi dress would get my full attention.  What's unnatural is that I--zero generations away from full-fledged compulsively-researching nerd--have no idea where the pattern or the name "polka dot" comes from.  The first thing that it brings to mind is John Candy (RIP) in Home Alone, but I'm pretty sure that even though he was a polka aficionado, he didn't wear the dots.  So where did the unapologetically-busy-but-reliably-ordered spots come from?

I really wanted it to be from a girl named Dot who liked a good polka.  You have no idea how much I wanted that to be the case.  After doing some research, I still don't admit defeat. Wikipedia's best guess is that the term originated because the pattern appeared at roughly the same time that polka had its heyday, but frankly I'm not convinced.  Wikipedia also says that polka dots are most commonly seen on children's clothes, toys, and furniture, and lets just say this dress is not the only thing in my closet to discredit that theory. Dictionary.com only offers in the way of etymology that it is an "Americanism dating to 1880-1885", which really just is not good enough.  Meanwhile, thehairpin.com has a fascinating history of the polka dot that points out what appears to be the most accurate precursor of the polka dot as we know it was a pattern called Thalertupfen in German which appears to mean "pattern of the Thaler".  Or something like that.

So, anyway, it looks like the specific origin of the term "polka dot" may be apocryphal, which annoys me a little bit.  I want to know who started it!  But in the meantime, I'll wear my pretty new dress in confidence, knowing that there are very VERY few people out there who would ever think to ask me.