The man usually credited with naming reggae says the word was an accident. In a 2004 interview with The Independent, Toots Hibbert called it "pure accident."
The word arrived a few years after the sound. The Dictionary of Jamaican English dates the style to about 1964, growing out of ska. Its name first shows up in 1968, in "Do the Reggay," a single by the Maytals, written by Hibbert and produced by Leslie Kong. At the time, "reggay" named a passing dance craze. The song tied the word to the music, and it stuck to the genre that followed.
The earliest print citation found so far is a Kingston Daily Gleaner advertisement from September 7, 1968. It billed "THE REGGAE" as a "Brand New Dance," performed by a band covering Hibbert's song.
Where did Hibbert get it? He has given more than one answer. In the later account, he said he was thinking of "streggae," Jamaican slang for someone who looked raggedy or badly dressed. In earlier interviews, he linked it to the English word "regular," for the beat.
Dictionaries point in a similar direction to the streggae story. The Dictionary of Jamaican English treated reggae as a new spelling of rege, as in rege-rege, which could mean rags or a quarrel. Its citations go back to 1943 for a related form, raga-raga, and 1954 for rege-rege. Etymonline still calls the origin uncertain, noting that rege-rege may be a doubled form of English rag.
Other claims compete. The historian Steve Barrow credited the producer Clancy Eccles with turning streggae, in his account a word for a loose woman, into reggae. Bob Marley said the word came from Spanish for "the king's music," and one album's liner notes derived it from Latin regi, "to the king." No dictionary supports the royal versions.
The best-supported reading is the humble one: a dance, a song title and a slang word for ragged clothes. In 2018, UNESCO added the reggae music of Jamaica to its list of the world's intangible cultural heritage.