The subject of today’s hilarity will be nicknames from the Viking Age. (I did a post awhile back about some of my favorite royal nicknames.) As with most people living in medieval times, the Norse had no last names (surnames),… Read More
In 986, a Viking named Bjarni Herjólfsson became the first European to spot North America. He was lost, trying to sail from Iceland to Greenland.… Read More
The person who discovers a new species is allowed to name it. There is a beetle called Agra vation, a mollusk called Abra cadabra, and a tiny snail species called Bittium ittibittium.
source: Robert Krulwich, www.npr.org/blogs/krulwich/