~ Animal Names ~

Have you ever wondered why we call certain things by the names we do? 

Take animals, for instance. 

Why do we call a bull a "bull"? Why isn't it a "snark" or a "quiggle"? Why is it called a "duck" rather than a "dufus"? I realize this isn't really heavy intellectual stuff on a Monday but inquiring minds (like mine) want to know.  My super duper scientifically reliable intensive research unearthed the fact that "bull" comes from an Anglo Saxon word, belan which meant to roar or bellow. 

Ducks are birds that "duck" in the water and the name comes from an old English word meaning diver.  The word is spelled d-u-c-e.  I don't know exactly how to pronounce it.  We have a toy poodle and poodles got their name from the German word "pudel", short for "pudelhund", which stands for a dog that splashes in water (although I've never known ours to do that). "Horse" comes from the Greek word "hippos".On that note, a hippopotamus means "
river horse" because "potamus" means river.  I thought they were pigs. Maybe that's just their eating habits.  

Who named the first animal and what was it?  Well, biblically it was Adam, as in, "Then God told Adam to name the animals.  All the creatures gathered around: those that crawled and those that flew and those that swam in the rivers; creatures with four legs and creatures with two, those with bushy tails and those who could see in the dark. They were all equal, and Adam had always been one of them.  Yet, as he began to name them, he drew himself apart. And the first animal he named was.....the unicorn."