Origins of Names of Some Popular Animals

Many of us love animals, some make them their best friends. That's great, these lovely creatures do deserve to be loved. As for their names, not all the English names of animals came about the same way. Some are just the English word for a name that already existed in another language while others are combinations of words that describe the animal. Let's consider the names of some animals and see how they originated.

 A Fox and a Cat

     Bull comes from the Anglo-Saxon belkan, which meant to "roar". Similarly, deer was originally deor in Anglo-Saxon, and meant "a wild animal".
When we call a cat, a puss, it goes back to the Egyptians. They called a cat pasht, meaning "the moon", because cats were active at night. This became shortened to pas, and that's how we got puss.
Hippopotamus is the Greek for "river horse". Hippos meant "horse", and potamos meant "river". Rhinoceros is a Latin term derived from two Greek words. Rinos mean the "nose", and the keras, was a "horn", and the rhinoceros has a horn on its nose!
Leopard comes from the Latin leopardus, which meant a "spotted lion". Lion comes from the Latin leon.

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Camel is derived from the Arabic gamel, which was camelos in Latin.Porcupine comes from two Latin words: porcus, a "swine", and spina, a "thorn". So, it's a pig with thorns!
The name poodle comes from the German pudel, which meant a "puddle". This was because it was a water dog and the word dog itself is a contraction of the Icelandic doggr.
Wolf is a modern spelling of Anglo-Saxon wulf, which goes back to the Latin vulpes, meaning "fox". Our name fox, comes from the Icelandic fax, which meant a "hair-mane". The name opossum comes from opassum, which is what the Indians of Virginia called this animal.
These are only a few names of animals, but you can see how, they originated in many different ways.