How Did Animals Get Their Name?

The names of animals, like the names of so many other things, didn’t originate in one particular way. The names developed in many different ways, from many different sources.

For example, a strange name like “hippopotamus” is actually a descriptive name. In Greek,”hippos” means “horse” and “potamus” means “river”. So the hippopotamus was a “river horse”. ”Rhinoceros” came from two Greek words, “rhinos”, the nose and “keras”, a horn. That’s just was this creature has: a horn on the nose! “Leopard” is from the Latin “leopardus”-which meant a “spotted lion”.

“Deer” comes from the Anglo-Saxon “deor”, which meant “a wild animal”. We get our name “cat” from the French “chat “, which came from the Latin “gata”.”Mouse” comes from the Anglo-Saxon “mus”. The name “poodle” has as interesting origin. It comes from the German: Pudel”, short for “pudelhund”, which meant “a dog that splashes in water”. The duck is so named because this bird “ducks” in the water, from as old English word “duce”, a “diver”.

These are only a few names with the explanation of how they started. But you can see the animals got their names in many different ways.