"Fun" Fact: The word "porcelain" comes from "little pig".
x The Starting Point: The Italian word for a "young female pig" (a little sow) is porcella.
x The Shell: Around the 13th century, Italians began calling cowrie shells porcellana. This name caught on because people thought the curved shape and glossy finish of the shells looked like the rounded back (or, according to some theories, the exposed anatomy) of a little pig.
x The Ceramic: When Europeans like Marco Polo traveled to China and saw the gorgeous, lustrous white chinaware, they immediately compared its shiny finish to the texture of the cowrie shell. They named the pottery after the shell, resulting in the French word porcelaine and eventually the English "porcelain".