Wolverine

An animal that is not a wolf

The wolverine is Gulo gulo, and it is the largest land-dwelling member of the Mustelidae — the weasel family, which also contains badgers, otters, martens and ferrets. It looks like a small bear with a bushy tail: body length of 65 to 105 centimetres, shoulder height of 36 to 45 centimetres, and a weight usually somewhere between 8 and 20 kilograms. It is not large. It behaves as though it is.

The English name is a diminutive of "wolf" — wolver, plus the -ine ending — so it means roughly "little wolf". It is not a wolf and is not closely related to one. The reputation behind the name is real, though: wolverines take prey larger than themselves, range across enormous territories, and are known for working on frozen carcasses that other predators leave alone.

Even the scientific name is an accusation. Gulo is Latin for "glutton". Some of that reputation may rest on a mistranslation: the Norwegian name fjellfross means "mountain cat", and it is thought to have worked its way into German as Vielfraß — literally "devours much" — which is where a good deal of the glutton story comes from.

The other Wolverine

For most people under sixty the word means a comic-book character. Wolverine first appeared in The Incredible Hulk #180 in 1974, in a single panel at the end of the issue, with a full appearance in #181. He was devised by the writer Len Wein and was deliberately Canadian — Marvel's first Canadian hero — a short, surly government agent with a healing factor and metal claws.

He has since become the anchor of the X-Men films, which is why the name will be recognised instantly and why anyone naming a dog Wolverine should expect to discuss Hugh Jackman within about four minutes of meeting a stranger.

There is a third Wolverine worth knowing about if you are American. Students and alumni of the University of Michigan were calling themselves Wolverines as early as the 1860s, and the university simply adopted the nickname of the state it sits in.

Three syllables is a lot of name

WUL-vuh-reen. The stress is on the first syllable and the rest is unstressed, which helps, but you are still asking a dog to learn three syllables where one would do. Shorten it before the dog arrives rather than after: Wolvie, Wolve and Rin all keep the shape, and Wolvie keeps the long -ee ending that carries.

The other thing to know is that the opening w is a quiet consonant. It is easily masked by wind and traffic, so the syllable carrying the stress is also the one most likely to be lost. Call the ending.

None of this argues against the name. It argues for deciding on day one that the dog's name is Wolvie, and that Wolverine is what you call it when it has done something impressive.

See also: Bear · Hawk · Fox · Logan · Storm

Common questions