The word “mall” for a shopping center ultimately comes from the name of an old ball-and-mallet game and the promenades where it was played, not from shopping itself.

Quick Scoop

From game to street

  • In Renaissance Italy there was a lawn game called pallamaglio , from words meaning “ball” and “mallet.”
  • French borrowed this as pallemaille , and English turned it into pall-mall.
  • The long alleys or lanes where people played pall-mall came to be known by the same name.

From promenade to “the mall”

  • In London, one such game alley became the street Pall Mall , and nearby a tree‑lined promenade was called The Mall.
  • Over time, “mall” generalized to mean a shaded walk or promenade for strolling, especially in parks or city centers.

From promenade to shopping center

  • In the mid‑1900s, planners started calling pedestrianized shopping streets “malls,” since they were essentially promenades lined with shops.
  • When large enclosed shopping complexes appeared in the 1950s–60s in North America, the same word was applied to them, and “shopping mall” became the standard term.

So, why is the mall called the mall?
Because the name traveled from an Italian ball‑and‑mallet game, to the lanes it was played on, to fancy promenades, and finally to the big walkable shopping spaces we hang out in today.

TL;DR: “Mall” comes from an old game called pall-mall and the promenades where it was played; only in the 20th century did it shift to mean an enclosed shopping center.

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.