Learn English – Why “ladybird”

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In case you don't know, in British English, the little red-with-black-spots insect is not called a "ladybug", as in North America, but a "ladybird".

This seems rather a poor act of classification, all things considered. Does anyone know why the ladybird was given such a name? Was it purely whimsical, or is there any reason why this insect should seem more avian than the rest of its kin?

On a possibly related note, why was President Johnson's wife called Lady Bird Johnson? I guess Lady Bug Johnson might have been insufficiently dignified for the First Lady of the United States…

Best Answer

Etymonline says:

ladybug

1690s, from lady + bug. The "lady" is the Virgin Mary (cf. Ger. cognate Marienkäfer). In Britain, now usually ladybird beetle (1704), through aversion to the word bug, which there has overtones of sodomy.

As to Lady Bird Johnson, that nickname was given to her by her nurse, as Wikipedia explains:

Though she was named for her mother's brother Claud, during her infancy, her nurse, Alice Tittle, commented, she was as "purty as a ladybird" [...]. That nickname virtually replaced her actual first name for the rest of her life. Her father and siblings called her Lady, though her husband called her Bird, which is the name she used on her marriage license. During her teenage years, her schoolmates had called her Bird, though mockingly, since she reportedly was not fond of the name.

Responding to your comment, I will add that both of her parents were natives of Alabama and the nurse was an African American. The Corpus of Historical American Language has these stats for ladybird vs. ladybug:

COHA stats

(X axis: year, Y axis: incidences per million words.)

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