Kiwifruit, shortened as kiwi, was named after the bird of the same name due to its fuzzy brown resemblance. The curiously shaped birds live only in New Zealand, so that’s where the fruit is from, right? Wrong! Kiwis – the fruits– come from China. There they are named after another animal, the macaques, because those monkeys enjoy eating “macaque peaches” so much.
At the turn of the 1900s, the principle of a New Zealand college brought some kiwifruit seeds back from China to New Zealand, and after a few decades, they began exporting them to the United States as “Chinese gooseberries.” Unfortunately they started this exporting business right around the Cold War. And at the time, nothing associated with Red China would sell well in the US. So what to do? Rename them (again). First, New Zealand changed the name to “melonettes,” but that also failed since there were high tariffs were placed on melons and berries.
Finally, someone hit on the idea of changing it from “goose” to the New Zealand national bird, “kiwis,” and from “berries” to “fruits,” which had lower tariffs. And thus the modern kiwi that you know and love was named.
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