Cats are called cicadas because there are dark patterns near the cat's mouth, which looks like a cicada in its mouth. Therefore, its owner named it "cicada slave".
It is also recorded in the Records of Table Exceptions that Princess Qionghua in the later Tang Dynasty had two cats, one of which was called "da ji in Kunlun" with a black body and a white tail, and the other was called "Cicada Slave" with a white mouth with patterns.
In the Song Dynasty, Huang Tingjian wrote a poem "Begging for a Cat from the Master's Book": "I heard that a raccoon slave will count his sons, buy fish and wear a willow to hire a cicada." Later, the title of cicada slave, cicada, Kunlun da ji also gradually evolved into another name for cats.
In fact, if you are serious, you have to be a white cat with a black spot on your mouth, which can be called a cicada.
There are some interesting nicknames for cats. According to the kinship between cats and tigers, the ancients called cats "Uncle Tiger", which is one generation longer than tigers.
Cats have dozens of nicknames, which are recorded in detail in the Cat Garden written by Han Huang in the Qing Dynasty. Because the book Cat Garden is not common, it is even less known now.
The ancient people had very elegant names for cats. And they will name their cats according to their specific appearance characteristics. For example, if a cat's paws are white, but the rest of its body is not white, then its paws are very distinctive. The ancients named such a cat Xun Mei, and the image is very interesting.
Because I had a cat myself, I did a lot of research to find out my master's name in ancient times.
The following picture is another name for ancient cats, and you can see the characteristics of cats at a glance.
Xun Mei: wearing four white socks
butterfly: black body+white mouth
butterfly: black body+white mouth
raccoon dog: civet cat
Chi Yu/Xiao Fei Lian: all white
Golden Tiger: orange cat, easy to get fat
My family used to raise gold silk.
Shen Jiangyue: There is a pinch of white embroidered tiger/snow gold thread in the abdomen; the white cat has yellow patches on its body;
Gold quilt and silver bed: white belly and yellow hair.