Robin is a diminutive type of Robert, an Previous French identify that entered England after the Norman Conquest. It was a preferred identify in Continental Europe and derives from an historic Germanic given identify, Hrōþiberhtaz, from ‘Hrōþi’ that means ‘fame’ and ‘berhta’ that means ‘brilliant’.
It isn’t identified why the redbreast was given the moniker Robin. It might merely have been alliteration, or it might have been because of the fowl’s reputation and brilliant pink breast.
Nonetheless, in contrast to many different species which misplaced their nicknames over time, the robin’s identify caught and by the 1540s the unique identify of redbreast had largely been distributed with and it grew to become identified merely as robin.
It was additionally generally identified affectionally because the robinet, as was the chaffinch, which should be the avian file holder for the variety of nicknames by which it’s referred to, roberd being one other.
However why redbreast? As we alluded to at the start of this text, robins don’t even have pink breasts; they’re in fact orange.
It’s usually stated that till the arrival of the fruit, there was no English phrase for the color orange. This isn’t precisely true.
In Previous English there was a phrase ‘geoluhread’ or ‘yellow-red’ – the g is prone to have been pronounced as a ‘y’ sound and the ‘eo’ diphthong could have been pronounced like ‘eh’, so it will have sounded very very similar to the trendy translation – for reddish orange. There was additionally ‘geolucrog‘ (yellow-saffron) for yellowish orange. However many orange issues similar to pink deer, pink hair, the Purple Planet, and the robin redbreast had been merely described as pink.
What concerning the American robin?
Till comparatively lately the European robin was categorized as a member of the thrush household associated to blackbirds, fieldfares, and redwings. It’s now thought of to belong to the Previous World flycatcher household, and particularly to the chats, extra carefully associated to the nightingale.
The American robin, nevertheless, is a member of the thrush household, and when early colonial settlers within the New World first got here throughout it they observed its resemblance to the robin again residence, specifically its brilliant orange breast, and named it after it.
It was not the one fowl although to be bestowed with the identify robin. Any fowl in North America with a major quantity of orange plumage was given the title. And so bluebirds are generally often called blue robins, towhees are floor robins, and the Baltimore oriole is the golden robin.
The identify robin additionally refers to dozens of different species of birds such because the rufous-breasted bush robin and white-tailed robin which sit within the chat household, and the scarlet robin and Pekin robin which don’t.