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EUROBATS Publication Series No. 7
Common Names of European Bats
With its similar meaning, the Russian
leather; the Albanian lakuriq nate unites
Blind mice
The Greek nychterides means “an animal of
name летучая мышь (a flying mouse)
lakuriq = hairless skin, and nate = night; the
A wide-spread misconception about total
the night”.
appeared only in the 19 th
century and it
Estonian nahkhiir derives from the nouns
absence of the sense of vision in bats is
The Persian old and local name, especially
represents a mere translation from German,
nahk = skin or leather, and hiir = mouse; the
reflected in the Bosnian and Croatian šišmiš,
in southern Iran, shab parreh ( )
whereas ancient Slavic words
kozhan
Breton askel grohen means a leather wing.
Montenegrin and Serbian slijepi miš, Galician
derived from shab = night, and parreh =
and netopyr remained in the language as
The contemporary French chauve-souris
and Portuguese morcego and Castellan
flyer.
vernacular names for the genera Eptesicus
derives from the Latin name cawa sorix or
murciélago, which all have the meaning
A parallel meaning exists in Albanian, as
and Pipistrellus respectively.
kawa sorix (kawa is a Gallic word), meaning
of “a blind mouse”. Similarly, the Arabic
the bat is sometimes named “a bird of the
an owl mouse. This was later modified to
khaffash (
), deriving from the word
night” in this language. Although the
calva sorix, which means a bald mouse.
khafish (
), can either denote the one
Basque saguzar originates from sagu =
Besides the above mentioned examples,
who was born with a weak vision, narrowed
mouse, and zahar = old: old mouse, there is
in modern Scottish Gaelic bats are called
or absent eyes, or the one that is able
a synonym gauenara, which means “a night
ialtag-anmoch (anmoch = late), ialtag-leathair
to see at night but not during the day.
swallow”. The most romantic among the
or ialtag-leuthraigh (leathair, leuthraigh =
The present generally used Persian name
“night-related” names is the Maltese one,
leather), and in Irish Gaelic sciathán
khoffash ( ) has derived from the Arabic
farfett il-lejl, deriving from farfett = butterfly
leathair = leather wing. However, the words
khaffash ( ).
and il-lejl = night, literally meaning “a
ialtóg (Irish Gaelic) and ialtag (Scottish
butterfly of the night”.
Gaelic) with unclear etymology are used
for all individual species names in both
The night flyers
languages.
The Proto-Slavic word netopyrjь , usually
interpreted by linguists as “a night flyer”,
was inherited by the Czech netopýr, Slovak
netopier, Slovenian netopir, and Polish
“Bat Lane” in Garbsen, Germany.
© Michael Wesemann
nietoperz.
In the same way, the Italian pipistrello
stems from the early medieval vipistrello,
which was in turn derived from the Latin
vespertilio and refers to vesper = evening.
Leather wings
A number of vernacular names refer to the
Accordingly, the Hebrew name atalef ( ),
which is mentioned in the Tanakh (Old
“Bat Street” in Cracow, Poland.
© Małgorzata Kotula-Balak
“leathern” appearance of bats and their
Testament) in Leviticus 11:19, Deuteronomy
wing membranes. For instance, the most
14:18, and Isaiah 2:20, derives from the word
Names with unknown meaning and/or un-
commonly used Armenian name chghdzhik
alata = dark or lightless, and the word af =
known etymology
() probably alludes to their leather
flight.
The Azerbaijani and Turkish yarasa, the
wings; the Lithuanian šikšnosparnis derives
In the Caucasus, Georgians call bats
Hungarian denevér, and the Welsh ystlum
from šikšna = tanned skin without hair, and
ghamura (ღამურა), which derives from the
have intricate origins and their etymology
sparnas = wing; the Latvian sikspārnis is
word ghame (ღამე) = night, and denotes
could not be explained. The Macedonian
derived from the Lithuanian name. The
something you can meet at night. Similarly,
liljak (лилјак) and Romanian liliac are
Belarusian and Ukrainian kazhan (kaжaн)
cognate to the word kozha (кожа) meaning
“Bat Street” in Liège, Belgium.
© Frédéric Forget
Armenians depict the lifestyle of bats in gisheramuk,
which means “a night mouse”.
consonant with the word leylak – the extant
Turkish name for a stork.
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