Animals names come from many different languages and places. The Duck is a bird that “ducks” below the water can come from the old English word for dive, duce. Zirafoh means “long neck” in arabic and if were the word giraffe came from. Hippos and potamus are greek words that mean “horse” and “river, together they make hippopotamus. Rhinoceros is also a combination of two greek words- Tinos which means “nose” and keras which means “horn” Horn on the nose is how the word rhinoceros came about. The word poodle originated from the German word pudel, short for pudelhund or “dog that splashes in water”. Leopardus is latin for spotted lion and where the leopard got its name. The old Anglo-Saxon word belan means “roar” and gave the bull its name. Karcharios, a greek word meaning sharp teeth and the latin word carcharus and gave the shark its name. 

You may have noticed before that a porpoise resembles a hog and this is where the Romans got the same Porcus pisces, meaning “hog-fish”. 

Salmo, is Latin for “leaping fish” which describes the salmon which swims upstream at times. It is thought that the Danish world mackreel means “spots” which is where the work mackerel originated for the spotted fish. Fisherman will found that “greedy fish” or the Latin word trocta is fitting of the trout.