So the guinea fowl, an East African bird that resembles the turkey, made its way to England via Ottoman traders. As such, the English called them "turkey cocks" or "turkey hens." When the turkey made its way to England from the Americas, they just stuck with the same word.

What does your country use?


33 comments

  2. Tacchino in Italian.

    In theory at least,that is onomatopoeic..it should sound like the call of the turkey!

  3. Pulyka, maybe from a neo-latin origin as chicken is Pullus in Latin.

    Guineafowl are called Gyöngytyúk, which means Pearlhen, because of the pattern of their feathers.

  4. Hard to tell. Krůta and krocan (female and male) are either onomatopeia words or from German Kollerhahn, which experts can’t agree on. Older word for them (and still used in Slovak) morka and morák are simply the combination of “mořský pták” – sea bird, but not as a bird living by water but meaning it’s a foreign bird, from land over the sea – moře.

  6. In Ukrainian “індичка” (indychka) derives its name from the word “Індія” (India). This naming is rooted in a historical misconception. When turkeys were first introduced to Europe, they were mistakenly believed to have originated from India. As a result, many European languages linked the bird’s name to India.

  12. Peru. Apparently it gained that name because it was believed that that’s where they came from, but Peru was also used as a general term for Spanish America.

  18. Γαλοπούλα (ga-loh-POOH-lah) for the female and γάλος (GAH-loss) for the male. Basically comes from the italian “gallo d’India” (indian rooster)

  20. Yours is only one of several theories [about the name “turkey” for birds](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkey_(bird)) in English. Other European nations landed on variations of “of India” and again no one quite knows *exactly* why.

    For me and my English speaking friends having Xmas in France, we jest about needing to go to the supermarket to buy our Indian Turkey.

  21. Pavo (from Latin pavus)
    Nowadays, also people that are not very smart are called pavos.

  31. The Latvian name is tītars, with an unclear etymology. Doesn’t sound similar to roosters, hens or anything obvious.

    A similar-sounding bird is grouse, teteris in Latvian, also cietrzew in Polish or тетерев in Russian, so clearly a common Balto-Slavic root. But it may not be related to tītars at all.

  32. I come from Iran, but live in Europe. Does it count? In Persian, they are called booghalamoon. The name comes from a type of iridescent fabric, as the skin around the bird’s throat changes color when it’s agitated.

  33. A male turkey is пуяк (p**ou**yak), and a female turkey, and also the general name of the animal, is пуйка (p**ou**yka). It’s not 100% clear what the etymology is, but it might have come from onomatopoeia (turkeys make sounds interpreted as *pouy-pouy-pouy*). The male word can be used as a metaphore for an overly arrogant and visibly prideful person (because the male bird can make itself big and red-faced), while the female word may colloquially, and rudely, refer to a dumb female person.

    Other regional and dialectal names include мисирка (misirka), фитка (fitka), биба (biba) and пипа (pipa). The first one deserves more attention – it seems to be based on the Turkish name of Egypt (Mısır), since this is where most Bulgarians at the time thought the birds came from (because they were imported via Egypt). In contemporary Bulgaria, since no more than 10 years ago, *misirka* has also had the pejorative meaning of “obedient female (typically) journalist asking politicians or businessmen only the questions that serve their interests and sparing the tough ones, or over-praising them”. It came from Boyko Borisov’s famously rich vocabulary 😂

    Guinea fowl is токачка (tok**a**chka), by the way.

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