Murray's claim that draughts players borrowed the name for the chess pawn can be refuted in two ways.

First by this table [Stoep 1997:80]           

In France, Italy and Spain the original name for the draughts singleton acquired a second meaning: 'doubleton'. The same happened in the Netherlands and in Germany. In France, Italy and Spain draughts players chose another word for 'doubleton', and so did Dutch and German draughts players. In Holland the new name was schijf, a word for a flat circular object, in Germany stein, literally "stone". The new word for the singleton did not reach the British islands; the name for the draughts singleton there remained unchanged.

The investigator who wants to defend Murray's claim will have the task to explain why French, Italian and Spanish draughts players borrowed the name of the chess pawn but not Dutch, German and British draughts players.

The development of the chess pawn. Left the old Arabic model, right the modern model [Petzold 1985:75]

Murray's claim can be refuted in a second way. The Italian word pedina occurs in the sense of 'board game piece', i.e. a piece to play games like tables, draughts or morris, in a book published in 1561. The first record of Italian pedina in the sense of 'chess pawn' dates from the same time. Under these circumstances the assumption that Italian draughts players borrowed the word pedina from chess players is inappropriate.

See for details about this subject Stoep 1997:78-83 and Stoep 2005:12-16.