Why aren’t Tom, Jake, and Jen­ny look­ing for­ward to Thanks­giv­ing?

Question

And “Hen” (their moth­er) isn’t much look­ing for­ward to it ei­ther.

Why? I can an­swer that ques­tion my­self: it’s be­cause they are all tur­keys.

• Tom is an adult male tur­key (al­so of­ten re­ferred to as a ‘gob­bler’).
• Hen is an adult fe­male tur­key.
• Jake is a young male tur­key.
• Jen­ny is a young fe­male tur­key.

Very of­ten when we de­cide to name our pets we give them hu­man names, and we may even con­verse with them as if they un­der­stand us and are able to re­ply. I be­lieve this is called an­thro­po­mor­phism: “con­sid­er­ing an­i­mals, ob­jects, etc., as hav­ing hu­man qual­i­ties”. I can al­so un­der­stand how we be­come at­tached to our pets, al­low­ing them to live in our homes and be­come, for all in­tents and pur­pos­es, mem­bers of our fam­i­lies.

1. Would it be true to say that in nam­ing the male and fe­male do­mes­tic an­i­mals (those bred for food, trans­porta­tion, work etc.), many were per­son­i­fied by giv­ing them hu­man names?

In or­der to avoid pos­si­ble con­fu­sion; I am talk­ing about clas­si­fi­ca­tion; for ex­am­ple, hen the fe­male chick­en, cock/roost­er the male, and chick the young are dis­tinct words which are not com­mon first names, where­as tom, jake, and jen­ny are.

As far as I am aware this does not hap­pen in the Ital­ian lan­guage. To pro­vide a few ex­am­ples from Ital­ian:

• pa­pe­ro e pa­pe­ra = drake/(fe­male) duck
• asi­no e asi­na = jack or jack­ass/(fe­male don­key) jen­ny
• cav­al­lo e giu­men­ta = horse/mare
• gat­to e gat­ta = tom­cat/(fe­male cat) queen
• gal­lo e gal­li­na = roost­er/hen
• tacchi­no e tac­chi­no fem­mi­na = (tur­key) tom/hen
• can­guro, can­guro fem­mi­na e cuc­ci­o­lo di can­guro¹ = buck or jake/(fe­male kan­ga­roo) jill/(young) joey

I know not one in­stance where a do­mes­ti­cat­ed farm an­i­mal in Italy is called by an Ital­ian hu­man name.

2. Is this phe­nomenon pe­cu­liar to English on­ly? Can any­one ex­plain its ori­gins? For ex­am­ple, why were the adult and young male tur­key both giv­en male hu­man names, and why is a young fe­male tur­key called a jen­ny?

3. Are there oth­er ex­am­ples in the an­i­mal king­dom where the young and adult an­i­mals have been giv­en “hu­man names”? I can think of on­ly two oth­ers but they are both adults: Tom an adult male cat and drake an adult male duck (I might be wrong, but I’m pret­ty sure I’ve heard Drake used as a per­son’s name).

_{Edit: I added the terms for male, fe­male, and young kan­ga­roos to the orig­i­nal list.}

Answer 1

Here are some additional human given names that are in current general use for certain animals. I don't think that these have been explicitly identified by other answerers/commenters.

Widespread General Use

billy goat [from William]

jackdaw, jackrabbit, jack mackerel, jack salmon, jacksmelt (common name, both sexes) [from John]

jenny wren [from Janet]

john mule, John Dory (common name of the fish, for both sexes) [John]

magpie [from Margaret plus pie in the sense of "pied {that is, blotched black-and-white} crow"]

molly mule [from Mary]

nanny goat [from Anne]

poll parrot [from Mary, according to OED via Word Origins, but not gender-specific in use]

tomtit (common name, both sexes) [from Thomas]

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Regional (and Possibly Obsolete) U.S. Use

These names appear as entries in Harold Wentworth, American Dialect Dictionary (1944) but are probably not in widespread use today:

Bessie cow [from Elizabeth] ("A cow." The entry cites a 1942 article in the Saturday Evening Post.)

biddy (for a hen or young chicken) [from Bridget, in its perhaps unrelated meaning of "hired girl" or "elderly woman"; "biddy" the chicken dates to 1601, and Merriam-Webster's says that the name is "perh[aps] imit[ative]," while "biddy" the working girl dates to circa 1861 and is "dim[inutive] of the name Bridget"]

bubbly-jock [from John] (The entry says, "A turkey gobbler. 1930 central Pennsylvania mountains. Still or recently used. 1934 Chiefly Scottish. Webster's.")

jack [from John] ("A male animal. 1923 northwestern Missouri Not used in mixed company. Male, n., is used. 1934 = male of certain animals. Webster's.")

jessie [from Jesse] ("A 'critter.' 1942 Florida.")

Johnny, Johnnie [from John] ("A male animal. 1934 Local U.S. Webster's.")

Old Ned [from Edward] ("1904–1922 western North Carolina–eastern Tennessee 1936 southwest Missouri–northwest Arkansas 1941 1. Fat pork, bacon. 2. A boar.")

The strangest animal name entry in the American Dialect Dictionary is surely "Old Ned," which in some localities refers to certain delicious remains of the animal in question, though it may also refer to a whole (and presumably live) boar.

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False Alarms

Two bird names that don't qualify because they are imitative of the bird's call, rather than being based on human given names:

bobwhite

chuck-will's-widow

Two designations that don't make the cut for other reasons:

pollywog [probably comes not from the name Polly but from poll (in the sense of head) and wiglen (to wiggle)]

teddy bear [doesn't apply generally to real bears]

And two involve the reverse case of names that arose from animal-specific words in other languages and later became common popular given names in English owing to the appeal of the animal:

mavis [derived from Anglo-French mauviz, meaning "song thrush"]

robin [derived from a root akin to the Danish dialect word robijntje and the Frisian word robyntsje, meaning "linnet"]

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A Note on Polite Avoidance of Certain Animal Names

I was struck by the remark in the American Dialect Dictionary that, in the 1920s in northwestern Missouri, jack was not used to refer to a male animal "in mixed company." It turns out that, across much of the U.S. South and as far north as Nebraska, Kentucky and West Virginia, some rural folk considered various male animal identifications to be vulgar. None of the forbidden nouns would cause much of a stir today: "Bull, boar, stallion & jack are not used in mixed company, although buck (male sheep or goat) & crower (rooster) are." But squeamishness on this point led to such euphemisms as male ("Any male animal kept for breeding purposes"), stock-male (bull), male-brute (bull), male-cow (bull), male-hog (boar), and male-pig (boar), which were in use for at least the first four decades of the twentieth century in some parts of the United States. The only animal designations (by gender) I can think of that prompt similar recourse to polite circumlocutions today are cock and bitch.

Answer 2

The French word for “fox” is re­nard, which comes from Re­nart (English Rey­nard), the name of the fox in the me­di­ae­val fa­ble cy­cle that has come to be known as the Ro­man de Re­nart, orig­i­nal­ly a Ger­man­ic per­son­al name (mod­ern Ger­man Rein­hard). So this phe­nom­e­non is not unique to En­glish.

Answer 3

Joey for a young kangaroo could be after Joseph Banks, who apparently first recorded the species in English.

Tom was a generic 'everyman' name from 14th c on, and if independence were associated as a quality, it would link well to tomcat.

Jack is a traditional story character who exhibits foolish behaviour, which would link to jackass.

On the flip side, Reynard the fox as a proper name evolved etymologically from 'hard to reckon or reason with'.

It would seem that there's a linking pattern with either a person or a quality.

As to why these are part of the English lexicon and not the Italian, I have no idea. What about French, German, Spanish?

While irrelevant in terms of answering the specific question, there's an interesting list of the etymological origin of animal names here.

FURTHER ADDITION

In French, Baudet is the equivalent of Jackass - the etymology associates this with a human quality of being constantly in a good mood, and that crosses over to a surname. Presumably the link is related to the 'hee-haw' being interpreted as a laugh.

And if you look at the entry here for Jacasser, you'll find that it says 'Proper names of men are often applied to birds'... eg Pierrot: sparrow.

I don't have time to do the same for other languages - the methodology is easy. Use some of the terms on the page given in tylerharms' link in the comment above, punch them into Google translate, find an on-line etymological dictionary and rely on a bit of common sense and luck to lead you to some answers.

The gradual anthropomorphisation of animals is something that interests me - it's clearly traceable visually in the history of illustrations to Aesop's Fables - a sample which spans 2,200 years of the Fox and Stork can be seen here. The transformation sees them go from wild (human and animal worlds very separate) to wild animals juxtaposed on the human world, to 'tamer' animals assimilated to the human world (clothed, civilised). As we hit the so-called 'age of enlightenment', interestingly, the human and animal get closer, while the depiction of the animals becomes more naturalistic, separating them superficially, yet paving the way to bringing them nearer in behaviour and treatment later. The names, as far as I'm aware always stay very fixedly in the animal kingdom. There's a history of the use of fables in cultures of repression. It may be that there's a related link between animal and human names. Happy for someone to prove this right or wrong. It's just a hypothesis at the moment.

Answer 4

Tom

The OED has this for tom:

The male of various beasts and birds; perh. first for a male cat: see tom cat n.; cf. also Compounds 2a.

1791 G. Huddesford Salmagundi (1793) 141 Cats..Of titles obsolete, or yet in use, Tom, Tybert, Roger, Rutterkin, or Puss.

...

Compounds 2a. In names of animals, denoting the male; see also tom cat n.

1772 T. Bridges Burlesque Transl. Homer (rev. ed.) v. 192 And, like Tom puss, o'er pantiles dance.

In all, it's applied to: tom puss, tom-dog, tom-turkey, tom-parrot, tom-bird, tom-chicken, tom-pheasant, tom-swan, tom-rats, tom-rabbits, tom-mice, tom-hedgehogs [etc.].

For the etymology of tom-cat:

In 1760 was published an anonymous work ‘The Life and Adventures of a Cat’, which became very popular. The hero, a male or ‘ram’ cat, bore the name of Tom, and is commonly mentioned as ‘Tom the Cat’, as ‘Tybert the Catte’ is in Caxton's Reynard the Fox. Thus Tom became a favourite allusive name for a male cat (see quot. 1791 at Tom n.1 6); and people said ‘this cat is a Tom’ or a ‘Tom cat’.

Jenny

For jenny:

Used as a prefix to denote a female animal, as jenny-ass, and esp. in names of birds, as jenny-hooper, jenny-howlet, and sometimes loosely applied without reference to sex.

First quotation:

1600 R. Surflet tr. C. Estienne & J. Liébault Maison Rustique i. xxii. 122 To preuent the danger of owles and iennie whuppers.

The etymology of the general sense:

A female personal name, pet-form or familiar equivalent of Janet (or, by confusion with Jinny or Jeanie, of Jane), and so serving as a feminine of Jack. Hence, like Jack, used as a feminine prefix, and as the name of machines.

Answer 5

João and Maria (John and Mary in English) are very com­mon names in Bra­zil­ian Por­tu­guese, but not on­ly in hu­mans. There are some birds that take these names.

Here are only a few of many:

• João-de-Ba­rro (Clay John) = Red Ov­en­bird
• João-Po­bre (Poor John) = Sooty Ty­ran­nulet
• João-Bo­bo (Sil­ly/Gul­lible John) = White-eared Puff­bird
• Ma­ria-Le­que (Mary Fold­ing Fan) = Crowned Roy­al Fly­catch­er
• Ma­ria-Pre­ta (Black Mary) = Crest­ed Black Ty­rant
• Ma­ria-Bo­ni­ta (Pret­ty Mary) = Black-chest­ed Ty­rant

Answer 6

Gilbert or Gib-cat

Yet another male cat variant. It's used by Shakespeare in 1 Henry IV to indicate a castrated cat, and stems from the name Gilbert.

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