Meleagris Gallopavo

When country fiddlers held a convention in Danville, 
the big money went to a barn dance artist who played 
Turkey in the Straw, with variations... 
— Carl Sandburg
 

Some say the first Americans had named it for its
   cluck
Or that Chris called it “tuka” for a peacock he
   mistook
(By Chris I mean Columbus; Tuka’s Tamil for
   peacock,
And Tamil is the language of Ceylon), but by the
   book
   
The Brits declared it first and for all time the bird
   from Turkey,
While Science called it meleagris, out of
   Malagasy
(Relating it to Guinea fowls, with Latin terms so
   classy
They get excused for making things perpetually
   murky).
   
Each stop along the trade route added names to
   the imposter:
The Palestinians dubbed the bird an Ethiopian
   Rooster,
The Dutch decreed it kalkoen, a Malibarian
   coaster
(From Calicut of Malibar in India, southwester).

The commonest of turkey tags, for Turks and
   many others,
Is Indian Chicken, for the land Columbus
   misdiscovered:
Thus hindi, dindon, indyk, indjuk, hindishga, all
   brothers
Of the nascent New World Order of the Turkey.
   Meanwhile, over

In India, some Indians have christened it
   “peru”,
Deferring to the name their Portugallan traders
   knew.
But Peru never knew the bird until the Spanish
   shipped it;
They called it gallopavo, for the peacock Chris descripted

(By Chris I mean Columbus; pavo’s peacock;
   gallo’s chicken;
And Portugallans are the chicken-trading
   Portuguese).
And so this story goes: the plot unwinds, the titles
   thicken,
But dinner’s on the table; you can call it what you please.

There is no grand denouement in the course of
   human nature
And from the very start the turkey’s oldest
   nomenclature,
Presented by the Aztecs in their native
   Nahuatl,
Has been a word the world could never say:
   Xuehxolotl.