Alternative hypotheses for the origins of the game term "Tiao" exist, such as that the term was used to count fish but no known historical cards with fish figures from this era are known to exist making this hypothesis highly unlikely. Packs sporting Strings of Fish and "Tiao" (条), together with the abbreviated "Bing" (并), and the simplified Chinese character version of "Wan" (万), did begin to appear during the early 20 century, these packs of cards continued to be produced until the late 20th century, but none have been known to be produced before this century. Another hypothesis is that the term "Tiao" is actually derived from a game term "Diao" and was used due to their similar pronunciation. But no evidence exists that "Diao" was used as a game term during the early 19th century as the earliest reference to "Diao" as a suit term comes from 1890. This information was published in a memorandum by Henry Wilkinson in the year 1925 under the title "Extracts from my unpublished notes" from his 1890 work on Chinese playing cards where he also lists similar terms. For example, instead of "Suo" (索) he lists "Diao" (吊), and instead of the term "Tong" (同) he lists the term "Bing" (餅), and for the third suit Wilkinson uses the simplified term "Wan" (万).
