Ben Parsons, Introducing Medieval Animal Names. Medieval Animals. Cardiff, UK: University of Wales Press, 2025, 181 pp.

My sister and her husband recently acquired a litter of kittens, two male and two female, which they named Orville, Wilbur, Nova, and Ramona. When I asked her why they had chosen these names, she replied that the male kittens, being brothers, were named after the Wright Brothers, while Nova, being white, had originally been named Vanilla, which their nine-year-old son had difficulty pronouncing, so Nova was chosen instead. And Ramona? She was named after Ramona Quimby, because (like that fictional character) she is mischievous.