1 Answer

We have not been able to find a definitive answer to this question. One  interesting theory about its origin, however, can be found in a book written by  Eden Emanuel Sarot in 1958 entitled Folklore of the Dragonfly: A Linguistic  Approach. He theorized that the name dragonfly actually came about because  of an ancient Romanian Folktale. In the folktale, the Devil turned a beautiful  horse ridden by St. George (of St. George and the dragon fame) into a giant,  flying insect. The Romanian names the people supposedly refed to this giant  insect (when translated into English) mean 'St. George's Horse' or, more  commonly, 'Devil's Horse.' According to Sarot, the peasantry of that time  actually viewed the Devil's Horse as a giant fly and that they may have  started referring to it as the 'Devil's Fly' (instead of Devil's  Horse). He stated that the Romanian word for Devil was "drac," but  that drac was also the Romanian word for dragon. He thought that  eventually the Romanian name for the Devil's Fly was erroneously  translated to the English Dragon Fly and this eventually evolved into the "dragonfly!"
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