Bike Names and Birds and Things

Well, I've done some wikipedia-ing and that "pub fact" about the word Hyabusa being japanese for a bird of prey that preys on blackbirds is true!
It's actually the Japanese for a pretty common bird of prey, one we even get in England, the Peregrine Falcon.
Whilst looking this up, I found out another couple of interesting facts;

"The Peregrine Falcon is often stated to be the fastest animal on the planet in its hunting dive, the stoop, which involves soaring to a great height and then diving steeply at speeds commonly said to be over 320 km/h (200 mph)"

Isn't that clever? There's a lot more to the name than just the Blackbird thing. Name the 200mph bike after the 200mph bird. It's actually quite a well thought out name, and quite a lot of vehicle names really aren't.

And that got me to thinking, why is a Ninja called a Ninja?

"A ninja or shinobi (忍者 or 忍び) was a covert agent or mercenary of feudal Japan specializing in unorthodox arts of war. The functions of the ninja included espionage, sabotage, infiltration, and assassination, as well as open combat in certain situations.^[1] The ninja, using covert methods of waging war, were contrasted with the samurai, who had strict rules about honor and combat."

Doesn't really have anything relevant that I can see. Unless there's a bike out there somewhere called the Samouri that I've never heard of. My Conclusion? The Ninja is called the Ninja just because it sounds cool!

On another note, apparently the FireBlade is a mistranslation from Japanese to English. It was supposed to be called The Lighning. Doesn't really have the same ring to it now does it?


*quotes are from Wikipedia. Of course.