From Paul the Octopus to Achilles the Cat – Proper Names of Animals which Predict the Outcomes of Sports Competitions

Abstract

In this paper, proper names of animals which predicted the outcomes of sports competitions are analyzed. A representative corpus containing over 200 zoonyms has been collected by means of excerpting from numerous, mostly online sources from different countries. The corpus is classified in line with the semantic-motivational criterion (i.e. according to the meaning of the word or stem from which an individual zoonym was formed), while determining the shares of individual motivational groups. The results of the analysis are compared with the results of research of other zoonymic layers with the aim of determining the specificities of animal namegiving. The paper is accompanied by an alphabetical list of collected zoonyms with information about the type of animal, the country where the animal lived when it predicted the outcomes of sports competitions and the sports competition the outcome of which it predicted.