Why are there so few words starting with N?

I’ve gotten ‘natant’ to stick, but I have my own bugbears. For instance, gigolo, doodad, flauta, panini and callaloo.

lovely plumage!

“N…for…”

Bonobo has its moments.

The plumage don’t enter into it.

There’s a number of words where, if you have a shorter one, the longer should become automatic. For example, if you have “pain”, you should immediately add “panini”. That’s easy to say, but it’s the remembering that’s hard. So I have a short cheat* list of such. The biggest difference between the short word and long word on the list is “head” → “deadheaded” (also “deadhead”, of course).

*Yes, I cheat, if you want to call it that. Like anyone but me cares, or even knows, what score I get.