Where did the name “penguin” come from?
It’s not clear where the name “penguin” came from. It might be from the Latin word “pingua,” meaning “fat.” Penguins certainly are fat birds—their thick layer of blubber was well known to hungry sailors who hunted penguins in past centuries. We do know that European sailors first applied the name “penguin” to plump seabirds of the Northern Hemisphere—birds known today as puffins and auks. These birds are not closely related to true penguins.
