What does the G in G-string stand for?

This has piqued my curiosity. How exactly does a G fit a female anatomy?

And then the thread is revived with this folk etymology atrocity.

I rate it “G” as in God, why don’t they ever learn?

It’s taking longer than we thought.

In the “G-strings” I have seen, it’s no different, really, from any bikini. Somehow they stay up, even though they’re below the hips. (The official definition of a bikini is that it reveals the navel, but, more often than not, that means the “waist” is way below the anatomical waist.) But perhaps this is some other sort of “G-string”.

Oh, as for dates, “G-string” on the violin is attested since 1838, in certain native costume since 1878, and on showgirls and strippers since 1936.

I remember a cartoon panel in one of my dad’s magazines (True, IIRC) with a little boy carrying a violin case, mouth open to speak, obviously having just come in, behind his father in an easy chair who’s holding a newspaper, looking extremely startled. The caption is Sally broke a G-string in the middle of her performance today. Being nine years-old, I didn’t get it.

I connected it with music, probably because of Bach’s Air On The G-string, although of course nobody plays with the other kind of G-string. Oh, wait a minute …

Apparently, though, “Air on the G string” is the title of a modern work based on something by Bach. Bach wouldn’t know what you were talking about.

If the G-string is named after a girdle, what are the
d,
If the G-string is named for a girdle, what are the D, A and E strings named for? Oh - maybe for the names of the notes they are tuned to? All 4?

In the run-up to his attempt to jump his cycle over the Snake River Canyon in 1974, daredevil Evel Knieval stated that he would be wearing a G-suit for the jump, prompting Pittsburgh sportscaster Bill Curry to wryly inquire, “Is that anything like a G string?”

“Air” from the Orchestral Suite No. 3.

Not all that modern (the arranger died in 1908) but it certainly postdates Bach. The solo violin part is transposed down a ninth so it can be played entirely on the G-string (auf der G-Saite is an indication to the solo violin, not part of the title).