New names
Opening new ground
The North African Berber word for cat is kaddiska. In the early Roman Empire, the Latin settlers in North Africa borrowed the word and changed it into cattus, as opposed to the Latin felis. Soon the word spread across the Roman Empire. In the 5th century CE, the church historian Evagrius is the first Greek author to refer to a “kattos,” the Greek form of the Latin cattus. These words were wildly popular as feminine names throughout the Empire; cities were soon full of “Little Cats” and “Kittens” (Felicla, Felicula, and Cattula). There was also a male version as in Julius Aelurio, which refers to the Greek name for the animal (“aeluros”).
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