Why is a lobster called lobster?

Answer 1

Great question since despite significant differences, lobsters and bugs do share a lot of characteristics, for example, both use the same strategy of having a skeleton on the outside (exoskeleton) which provides both support and protection, both using the same hard protein (chitin), both lay eggs, and so forth.

The system used in Biology to classify living things - the taxonomy - is a technique used to group in a hierarchy based on physical similarities. If you think of the way lobsters and insects are classified it might be like putting them into a big family tree and saying they might have the same great-great-grandparent but yet a different last name so you might call them cousins. (Of course this analogy is very loose because one organism does not necessarily descend from its parent, consider this description only for grouping similar creatures.) Lobsters and insects do belong to the same kingdom and phylum - grouped together because of their joint appendages (arthropoda) - and in another grouping called a clade (Pancrusteacea) with two subphyla - Crustacea (the crustaceans) and Hexapoda - (the six-legged insects and their subgrouping Insectae or the true insects).

Aside from the taxonomic approach to why lobsters aren't considered bugs, you might also think within the notional paradigm, based on their ecological niche, their location, their role, their behavior, their size, etc. For example, lobsters are crustaceans, adapted to a marine environment, with a different strategy for oxygenating tissues than insects which severely limits the size an insect can get... and so forth.

Answer 2

Came from "lopster" which came from old English "loppestre" meaning, spidery creature.