The POGO stick was invented by Max Pohlig and Ernst Gottschall, from Germany. A German patent was registered in Hanover on March 1920 for a device they called a “spring end hopping stilt“. It is thought that the beginning two letters in these men’s last names is where the word “POGO” comes from.
2 September 1921, Dundee Courier:
The two-handle POGO stick design was patented by George B. Hansburg in 1957.
British Pathe News film, 1965:
Please click here to play this clip.