Where Do The 亚洲网紅露点s For Our Pets Come From?

You probably hemmed and hawed, deliberated and debated, over what to name your pet.听 And we have a whole slideshow dedicated to the history of some of the most popular pet names.听

But have you ever thought about why Fido is called a dog, or why Bubbles is called a fish? The origins of domesticated animal names are quite diverse, and some are surprising.听

To commemorate National Pet Day (which should be every day, as far as we’re concerned), let鈥檚 look at how some of the most beloved animals we keep as pets got their names.

dog

How did man鈥檚 best friend come to be called dog?

While dog is such a common word, its origin, well, hounds us. Until around the 1500s, the word hound听used to be the general, go-to word for dog in English. Fun fact: the word hound is actually related to canine.

However, scholars can’t quite pinpoint where the word 诲辞驳鈥�found, though rarely, in Old English鈥攃ame from. Probably not unlike why you can’t figure out why your dog likes to roll around in smelly stuff.

So, we guess we’ll let this sleeping dog lie.

cat

While cats may be more mysterious and reclusive than dogs in real life, when it comes to the origin of the word cat, it鈥檚 a bit easier to pin down.

The word听cat is recorded in Old English, and hasn’t changed much since. (Hey, why mess with a good thing?) The masculine form was catt, the feminine catte.

The word cat is probably related to the Late Latin听cattus, source of some other听cat words you may know, including the Spanish听gato and French听chat.

fish

Like dog and cat, fish is another old word found in the earliest records in the English language. In Old English, fish took the form fisc. Spelling-wise, that sc looks like a fish out of water, but it was actually pronounced just like sh today!

Now, we think this is pretty neat: the English word is actually distantly related to the Latin piscis, ultimate source of听pescatarian, “a person whose diet is mostly vegetarian but includes fish and seafood.” Don’t worry: no one is eating Bubbles!

snake

A pet snake isn鈥檛 everyone鈥檚 cup of tea, we know. But we love all pets here! Maybe calling it a snek听makes it a little cuddlier鈥攁nd certainly less ominous than serpent.

Snake comes from the Old English snaca, which looks dangerously similar to听snack, from a Middle English word meaning “to snap, bite.” There could be something to those sn– sounds, though. Many words involving the mouth and nose (and snakes are very much mouth and nose) begin with sn-: snarl, snicker, sneer, snout, and many more. This phenomenon is called sound symbolism.

Speaking of creepy-crawlies, the word serpent stems from the Latin word 蝉别谤辫脓苍蝉, which means “to creep, crawl.” Serpent is also related to the Greek word herpes, source of herpetology, the study of reptiles and amphibians.

hamster

The name for those cute, furry, little chipmunk-cheeked rodents known as hamsters hails from German. Hamster was borrowed directly from the German听Hamster in the early 1600s.

We like to think of hamster as the hipsters of the rodent world. Just because we can. For the sheer fun of wordplay.

horse

A horse is a horse, of course, of course.

And that’s pretty much true, etymologically speaking, too.听Horse comes from the Old English听hors. The word has many a cousin in Germanic languages, and could come from an ancient root meaning “to run.” In which case鈥攐f course!

But, that Old English hors has no relation to听hors d’oeuvre, French for “outside the main course.”

pig

First, a little swine quiz: what鈥檚 the difference between a pig and a hog?

On the farm, a pig is a young domestic hog.听Generally speaking, a pig weighs in at under 120 pounds, the hog tips the scales over.

Now, like the word dog, forms of the word pig and hog are found in Old English, but their ultimate origin is obscure. Etymologists think that final –g in dog, pig, and hog have a connection, though.

Why do we raise pigs but eat pork? Same goes for cow and beef. That’s due to the influence of French (and its higher social status) in the Middle English. Via French, pork comes from the Latin porcus, “pig, hog.”

hermit crab

There comes a time in most every family鈥檚 life when you bring home a hermit crab, which, frankly, is one of the most low-maintenance pets you can get.

The hermit crab date back to 1725鈥�35. Hermit refers to the way the crab protects itself in castoff shells. In general contexts, a hermit听is a recluse. In zoology, a hermit can refer to an animal with solitary habits. This is interesting: the word hermit ultimately derives from a Greek word meaning “living in a desert.”

The word听crab鈥攍ike so many of the words we’ve seen here鈥攊s found in Old English and has many Germanic cognates, like the dutch听krab.

rabbit

Let’s end where we began: an everyday word for a pet whose origin is just unknown.

Not recorded until about 1375鈥�1425, the word rabbit is slightly younger than the word听dog. It was probably borrowed from an Old North French word. But from there? Better not fall down the etymological rabbit hole.

Bunny, as a pet name for a rabbit, dates back to the 1600s. It appears to be based on听bun, “tail of a hare.” And hare? That gets right back to Old English roots with kith and kin in Germanic languages. But, be sure not to confuse rabbits and hares!

Seems we don’t have to hop too far to get such origins when it comes to our pets. There’s something comforting, though, in how long-lasting these words have been?