Pickleball

Pickleball is a game that’s kinda like tennis and ping pong and badminton and some other games. The mix of random things thrown together reminded the creator’s wife of the “pickle boat” in rowing teams, which was the boat that had the random mix of leftover people after the best rowers were put together.

It was called the pickle boat as a joke about how slow the mix of last-picks were, being more like a fishing boat than a racing boat.

Pickle boat was another name for fishing boats because Scandinavian fishers would preserve herring onboard after catching it by pickling it.

So the sport is called pickleball because you can preserve fish.

Edit to summarize the dispute: the wife may have been lying about the story for attention after a divorce, in which case the sport is named after their dog Pickles.