modern form batiste, or baptiste, comes from a popular merge with the surname Baptiste, pronounced Batisse, as indicated by the use of the expressions thoile batiche (1499) and toile de baptiste (1536) for the same fabric. The alleged invention of the fabric, around 1300, by a weaver called Baptiste or Jean-Baptiste Cambray or Chambray, from the village of Castaing in the peerage of Marcoing, near Cambrai, has no historic ground. Cambric was a finer quality and more expensive than lawn (from the French laune, initially a plain-weave linen fabric from the city of Laon in France). Denoting a geographic origin from the city of Cambrai or its surroundings (Cambresis in French), cambric is an exact equivalent of the French cambrésine (), a very fine, almost sheer white linen plain-weave fabric, to be distinguished from cambrasine, a fabric comparable to the French lawn despite its foreign origin. Cambric is also close to chambray () from a French regional variant of "Cambrai", a name which "also comes from Cambrai, the French city, where the material was originally made of linen yarn". Chambray (also spelled "chambrai") appears in North American English in the early 19th century. Though the term generally refers to a cotton plain weave with a coloured warp and a white weft, close to gingham, "silk chambray" seems to have coexisted. Chambray was often produced during this period by the same weavers producing gingham. White linen cambric or batiste from Cambrai, noted for its weight and lustre, was "preferred for ecclesiastical wear, fine shirts, underwear, shirt frills, cravats, collars and cuffs, handkerchiefs, and infant wear". Technical use sometime introduced a difference between cambric and batiste, the latter being of a lighter weight and a finer thread count. In the 18th century, after the prohibition of imports into England of French cambrics, with the development of the import of Indian cotton fabrics, similar cotton fabrics, such as nainsook, from the Hindi nainsukh ("eyes' delight"), became popular. These fabrics, initially called Scotch cambrics to distinguish them from the original French cambrics, came to be referred to as cotton cambrics or batistes. Some authors increased the confusion with the assumption the word batiste could come from the Indian fabric bastas. In the 19th century, the terms cambric and batiste gradually lost their association with linen, implying only different kinds of fine plain-weave fabrics with a glossy finish. In 1907, a fine cotton batiste had