I recently got interested in people whose names are also the common names of animals. So, of course, I made a list and did some contemplating. Thus I came up with these rules about this list. (It seems whenever I do one of these lists, there’s someone who doesn’t like my rules. There’s nothing wrong with that, feel free to make up your own list with your own rules. But please don’t complain about my rules here.)
- The list is restricted to notable people, which means that I’ve heard of them. Or if you’ve heard of someone who qualifies, I’ll probably accept them too. But if you only know of them because they have a Wikipedia page or they turned up in a google search, that’s not good enough.
- Only actual people; no fictional or mythological people/beings.
- Only English names of actual animals. That means Dragon, Pegasus, and other fictional animals are right out. Not that I came up with any people with such names, but I’m sure there’s some out there. Also, animal names from other languages are out.
- People who have animals named after them are also right out. That means Lechmere Guppy, who the fish was named after, is not accepted. For that matter, anyone else named Guppy is also out unless you can find evidence they were actually named after the fish.
- Names of subsets of animals, such as those of young, males, or females, are accepted.
- Only one person for each animal name is needed. There’s lots of people named Fox, for example, but I only need one of them.
The names seem to fall into five groupings, four of which make up a hierarchy. That is, I prefer names that belong to higher levels of the hierarchy. In descending order of desireableness, here are the five groupings:
Given names
Fawn Hall (accomplice)
Jay North (actor)
Robin Williams (comedian, actor)
Salmon P. Chase (politician, jurist)
Henrietta Swan Leavitt (astronomer)
Wolf Blitzer (journalist)
Family names
Greg Bear (author)
Larry Bird (basketball player)
Emma Bull (author)
Stephen Crane (author)
Francis Drake (privateer)
Leslie Fish (musician)
Michael J. Fox (actor)
Patsy Mink (politician)
Zebulon Pike (explorer)
Mike Trout (baseball player)
Harry Turtledove (author)
Christopher Wren (architect)
There are other animal names that are also family names. Here’s a list of some of them that have Wikipedia lists. (This is not an exhaustive list; I’m sure there are others.) I looked over these lists, but didn’t see any names I recognized. Perhaps someone out there will recognize someone on one of them. Let me know.
Bass
Dove
Duck
Falcon
Finch
Hawk
Lark
Sparrow
Nicknames, pen names, stage names
Cat Stevens (musician)
John Cougar Mellencamp (musician)
Dog the Bounty Hunter [Duane Chapman]
Goose Gossage (baseball player)
Mouse Davis (football coach)
Ken Snake Stabler (football player)
Spider Robinson (author)
Megan Thee Stallion (rapper)
Theodore Sturgeon (author)
Tiger Woods (golfer)
Alternative spellings
Buster Crabbe (actor)
Ima Hogg (socialite, philanthropist)
William Lyon Mackenzie King (Canadian Prime Minister)
Alonzo Stagg (coach)
Jimmy Wales (internet entrepreneur)
Translations
The fifth grouping is those whose actual name is in another language, but they’ve gone down in history by their translated name. The three most prominent are listed below. I’m sure there are many others. These names are not in the hierarchy above and so they may duplicate an animal name in one of the other lists.
Sitting Bull (Tȟatȟáŋka Íyotake) [Lakota]
Black Hawk (Mahkatêwe-meshi-kêhkêhkwa) [Sauk]
Crazy Horse (Tȟašúŋke Witkó) [Lakota]
