Creative Sneakers

In the 1800's a London Police Officer developed a rubber soled shoe in order to catch criminals in the act quietly, he called his invention Sneakers. The name derives from the fact that the rubber soles made the shoes noiseless. The term "sneaker" itself was also used in 1887 by Boston Journal of Education:
“It is only the harassed schoolmaster who can fully appreciate the pertinency of the name boys give to tennis shoes — sneakers.”
The British English term "trainer" derives from "training shoe."