Hearts remained hearts, so no explanation needed. Spades coming from the Spanish word spado meaning sword, so similar to pikes. Pike heads became spades in the British/American deck. And as you read these, you can see how close they are to the suits in the international deck of cards that is in use nowadays. Traditional French playing cards still have these four suits – pike heads, hearts, clover, and paving tiles.
Swords, cups, coins and polo-sticks were the suits used in Egypt, and a lot of countries in Europe used some of those suits, and still do. But because of trading routes like the silk road, cards made their way to the middle east and then to Europe by the middle of the last millennium, if not earlier than that. Playing cards are a lot older than the game of poker, almost a thousand years older, and they originated in China. The diamond suit in a pack of cards is thought to have evolved from another shape in use over 500 years ago in France.
