The word roti is derived from the Sanskrit word rotikā, meaning "bread", and more generally for any bread-based or bread-like food, including sandwiches and pancakes.[2][3][4] The origin of "john" within the name of the dish has not been definitively proven, but may derive from British use of the first name John to address any male person, especially when that person's first name is unknown, difficult to remember or difficult to pronounce, thus a name that may have been used by British armed forces members to address native vendors in British Malaya or vice versa.[2][3] Oral sources have claimed that the dish and name originated with a Malay cook who lived in Singapore during the early 1970s.[7] Various variations may have existed, but the final version is associated with a stall in the Taman Serasi hawker centre that began serving the dish in 1976, after obtaining the recipe from another hawker. This original stall was moved to Serangoon Garden Market in 2001.[8]
