After cats were introduced into China, they did not become popular among the people. It is generally believed that domestic cats were generally domesticated in China only in the prosperous Tang Dynasty. The common name of owl must be that after the popularity of cats, people will describe owls in the form of cats. In the Song Dynasty, owls were only described as owls or owls, and cats were called civet cats instead of cats at that time, which showed to some extent that the name of owls was not secularized at that time.
Because the owl is a common name, and it is difficult to verify the first source of the common name, so I can only say that the name owl may be later than the Song Dynasty.