Is turkey (the bird) named after Turkey (the country) or vice versa?
Dear Straight Dope: With the recent earthquake in Turkey, I started to think about the fact that there’s a bird and a country named the same thing. How did each get its name? And are there any other countries named the same as animals or food? Is there a place named Chicken? — Aron Siegel Here’s all I know for sure: Despite several crackpot theories to the contrary, the bird was named after the country, but in a very roundabout way so that the details are uncertain. Oh, one other thing I know for sure: No European should ever have been allowed to name any New World species. The Aztecs, who kept domesticated turkeys for hundreds of years before the Europeans arrived, had a perfectly good word for the bird in their Nahuatl language: xuehxolotl, which, of course, is pronounced. Don’t ask me how it’s pronounced, but I’m sure it can be done. If the Europeans had been smart enough to stick with the original name, there would have been no need for me to write this Staff Report, and on Thanksg
