penguin [fwd from David Nash <David.Nash at anu.edu.au>]

[Nick Thieberger]

ETYMOLOGY:
   Possibly from Welsh pen gwyn, White Head (name of an island in
   Newfoundland), great auk, pen, chief, head, + gwynn, white.

http://www.bartleby.com/61/36/P0163600.html


[Origin obscure: see Note below. It appears that the name was first
given to the Great Auk or Gare-fowl of the seas of Newfoundland, still
called in F. pingouin or pinguin (1600 in Hatz.-Darm.).  But it was
soon applied also to the birds now called penguins, in F. manchots
(found by Drake at Magellan's Straits in 1578), which have a general
external resemblance to the northern bird, though, in the opinion of
zoologists, widely removed in structure. In this sense, also, Du. and
Ger. pinguin, Da. and Sw. pingvin, all from English.]

  [Note. Our earliest examples of the name penguin are due to
  Hakluyt. His account of Hore's Voyage to Cape Breton was taken down
  by him, some fifty years after the event, from the mouth of Thomas
  Buts, a survivor of the voyage. If we could be sure that the name
  Penguin Island9 dated back to 1536, this would be the earliest
  occurrence of the word, as it is certainly the earliest English
  notice of the bird. Ingram's Narrative, if reliable, would be
  evidence for the name in 1568-9; but his tale is discredited, and is
  thus evidence only that he had heard of the penguin by 1582, four
  years later than Parkhurst's letter to Hakluyt. The southern fowl,
  found by Drake (as by Magalhaens before him) at Magellan's Straits,
  is fully described in The World Encompassed by Sir Francis Drake,
  published by his nephew in 1628, out of the Notes of Mr. Francis
  Fletcher9, Drake's chaplain (ed. Hakl. Soc., 1854, p. 75), but no
  name is there given to it. The name occurs however in a MS of 1677,
  stated to be a transcript of Fletcher's original Notes of 1578:
  infinite were the number of fowles, which the Welsh men named
  Penguin, and Magilanus tearmed them geese9 (ibid. 72); but the
  absence of the name from the printed work of 1628, and from three
  other 16th c. accounts of the voyage (ibid. Appendix 217, 237, 279),
  in which the bird is described, makes the occurrence of penguin in
  Fletcher's original Notes somewhat doubtful. The name certainly
  occurs in the narrative of Candishe or Cavendish, 1588; though his
  statement that Drake named one of the isles Penguin Island9 is at
  variance with that of the eye-witnesses Fletcher and Winter
  (ibid. 76, 279), who both state that he named it St. George's Island
  in honour of England9. The attribution of the name penguin to the
  Welsh men9, and its explanation as Welsh pen gwyn white head9,
  appears also in Ingram, and later in Sir Thomas Herbert's Travelsin
  ed.  1634 as a surmise, in ed. 1638 as an accepted fact. But, besides
  that the Great Auk had not a white head (though it had white spots in
  front of the eyes), there are obvious historical difficulties, which
  some would remove in part by supposing the name to have been
  originally given by Breton fishermen. Other suggestions that the name
  is derived from L. pinguis fat9, or is an alteration of pin-wing9,
  referring to the rudimentary wings, are merely unsupported
  conjectures.]
--


Department of Linguistics and Applied Linguistics
University of Melbourne

http://www.linguistics.unimelb.edu.au/people/postgrads/thieberger/ntcv.html