How 7 Fruits and Veggies Got Their Names
Spoiler alert: dragon fruit doesn't come from dragons
Cultivated for at least 10,000 years, chickpeas have long been a staple in Mediterranean diets—though they have nothing to do with chickens. The word chickpea ultimately comes from the Latin word for “pea,” cicer which, via Anglo-French, entered Middle English as chiche. Over time, chiche was folk etymologized as chick in English. Chickpeas are also sometimes called garbanzos, with garbanzo coming from Spanish. The Spanish garbanzo is an alteration of an earlier word of uncertain origin, arvanço or ervanço, resulting from possible blending with garroba (“carob”) or gálbana (“kind of pea”).
Gaza has its own variation of the famed falafel. While the recipe may vary depending on individual and family traditions, Gazan falafel often includes a mixture of chickpeas, fava beans, green chiles, green onions and coriander seeds.
— Sami Tamimi, Boustany: A celebration of vegetables from my Palestine, 2025
With its spiky skin and vibrant pink hue, dragon fruit looks like something from a fantasy novel. But it doesn’t come from dragons (obviously). Dragon fruit (sometimes dragonfruit) refers to the juicy, oval/oblong fruit of any of several upright, sprawling, or vining cacti. The widely cultivated one US consumers are most familiar with usually has bright pink or red skin and white or sometimes red, mildly sweet flesh studded with tiny black seeds. Dragon fruit was first used for the fruit in the 1960s, likely because of its scaly appearance, over 100 years after another name, pitahaya (or pitaya), entered English from Spanish and ultimately from the Taino language.
Dessert was an array of tropical fruits like mango, dragon fruit and pineapple, all cut and served on banana leaves.
— Eva Reign, The New York Times, 7 July 2025
A versatile staple in dishes such as ratatouille and baba ghanoush, this glossy purple fruit belongs to the nightshade family. But how did something purple come to be named after an egg? The English name eggplant dates back to the 18th century, when a different variety of the fruit—small, white, and oval-shaped—was commonly grown in Europe. These early cultivars looked just like hens’ eggs, and the name stuck (seed catalogs in the early 1800s listed both white and purple versions called “eggplant”). British English speakers use the word aubergine for the fruit. Aubergine comes, via French and Catalan, from the Arabic word al-bādhinjān, meaning “the eggplant.”
The eggplant is probably the most beloved vegetable in Greek cuisine. Eggplant can be intimidating to cook with for those who are not used to it, but the preparation is actually quite simple. This nightshade is incredibly versatile and can be prepared in many ways.
— Shaily Lipa, Yassou: The Simple, Seasonal Mediterranean Cooking of Greece, 2025
The grapefruit is a large citrus fruit known for its tangy flavor; it probably originated in Barbados as a hybrid of shaddock, also known as pomelo. Grapefruit became well established as a fruit for home consumption in the islands of the West Indies before its culture spread to the American mainland. English speakers gave many early names to the new-to-them citrus; often, names were confused because oranges, grapefruit, pomelos, and other citrus fruits looked so similar. The name grapefruit likely came about because the fruit grows in clusters like grapes.
This is a citrus fruit of incomparable fragrance and exceptional juiciness. Although I rather like the cold-baths-and-press-ups appeal of old-school white grapefruit, the pretty ruby and pink varieties offer a much less acerbic experience than white grapefruit, and a more rounded, richer flavour.
— Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, River Cottage A to Z: Our Favorite Ingredients, & How to Cook Them, 2016
What do you call the small, white bean commonly used in dips, stews, and soups? One of the most common names is navy bean, but its creamy shade is far from blue. Navy beans are a pale, protein-rich variety of kidney bean, and their close association with the U.S. Navy earned them their contemporary moniker in the early 1800s (they were an important food for sailors due to their long shelf life and high nutritional value). But navy beans have been around for centuries, long before the U.S. Navy commandeered them. They’ve been called haricots since the mid-1600s and pea beans since the late 1700s.
On June 23, 1993, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts designated the navy bean our official state bean. The little white bean, also known as a pea bean, Boston bean and Yankee bean, probably earned the honor due to its prominence as the main ingredient in the iconic Boston baked beans. The dish became so popular that it has earned our state capital the nickname Beantown.
— Carol Goodman Kaufman, The Telegram & Gazette (Worcester, Massachusetts), 4 Dec. 2024
People have enjoyed the strawberry for hundreds of years, and its name dates back to before the 12th century. The Old English word for the berry was strēawberige, and the exact origin of the name is not known. The most likely explanation is that the seedlike achenes that cover the strawberry were thought to resemble straw. (An achene is actually a small, dry, one-seeded fruit, and technically a strawberry is an enlarged pulpy receptacle bearing numerous achenes, but somehow this doesn’t seem as appetizing as berry.)
Another explanation is that straw in strawberry is a corruption of the word strew, which also goes back to Old English. It is believed that strew could have been the original first element of strawberry because of the way the runners—the creeping stems that touch ground and root—of the plant “strew” other plants over an area. Others have linked straw to the appearance of the runners when dried up. Both explanations are plausible but not convincing.
If you’re wondering about the origin of the name raspberry, etymologists have a better understanding of its roots. Earlier names for the berry were rasp, a dialectal term, and raspis. Rasp and raspis may derive ultimately from the noun rape, meaning “grape pomace.” Pomace is the residue left after the juice has been extracted from fruit. Perhaps the uneven appearance of the raspberry was thought to resemble crushed fruit. The oldest evidence that we know of for the word raspberry comes from the early 17th century, several hundred years after the appearance of strawberry.
The rose family includes many well-known berries. Our wild strawberries grow throughout Summit County and bloom and then ripen throughout the summer season. They are small, but most will say they are more delicious than bigger, grocery-store strawberries.
— Karn Stiegelmeier, The Summit Daily News (Frisco, Colorado), 4 Sept. 2025
Crab apple trees, which originated in Central Asia, have been cultivated for thousands of years. They are widely grown for their attractive growth habit, spring flower display, and decorative fruits. The fruits are much smaller and more tart than the common apple (Malus domestica) but are suitable for jellies, preserves, and cider. Whence the crab in crab apple, however? The first known use of crab apple in English appeared in the late 1500s, but the tree (and its fruit) have been known simply by crab since the 1300s, coming from the Middle English crabbe. That crabbe is thought to be the same crabbe that gave English the crustacean crab—which makes sense if a sour or bitter fruit can be thought of as “biting.” (It’s possible that crabbe’s predecessor, the Old English crabba, shares an earlier ancestor with the verb ceorfan, which led to the modern verb carve.)
Unless it is diseased, a crab apple tree will merrily produce crab apples with zero maintenance, though well-timed pruning will keep the trees healthy and shapely. … Why, then, are people not beating each other down to get to these things? Because they are a pain in the ass. A harvester can pick ten pecks of apples in the time it takes to collect one peck of crab apples.
— Sara Bir, The Fruit Forager’s Companion: Ferments, Desserts, Main Dishes, and More from Your Neighborhood and Beyond, 2018
