Rochambeau game

[Douglas G. Wilson]

While I was looking around for "Shambo" I ran across the term "Rochambeau"
(also "Rochambeaux", "Roshambo", etc.) used as the name of the
"rock-paper-scissors" game (sometimes called "jan ken pon" or "guu choki
pan" [Japanese], I think).

Rochambeau was of course a French general prominent in the US Revolutionary
War.

By Web search, I do not find any evidence of such a name for this game
until very recently (1994 in Usenet).

Anybody recognize it? Is it a recent invention? I believe it was used on TV
("South Park") in recent years. Straight Dope had a piece on it but no
documentation for this name.

Why would the game have this name? Do the rock and paper and scissors have
names like "ro", "shan", "bo" in some language? Did Gen. Rochambeau play
the game?

-- Doug Wilson