meaning of the name in czech i had to correct the following statement the boy named crow kafka means crow in czech in fact the czech word for crow is vr na cf cs vr na the actual and exact meaning of kavka is jackdaw a bird of coloeus subgenus specifically the western jackdaw coloeus monedula cf cs kavka in surnames the middle consonant occurs spelled v or f but pronunciation behind remains the same while jackdaws and crows corone subgenus are similar closely related birds and visual misidentification sometimes occurs the semantical border betwen jackdaw nad crow remains clearly drawn in the czech language at least when looking from the jackdaw side towards crows crows feature more prominently in common parlance proverbs etc therefore sometimes other crow like birds ravens etc are called simply crows but on the other hand if one says kavka he she certainly refers specifically to a jackdaw and doesn't mean vr na either of two species native to the czech lands carrion crow corvus corone or hooded crow corvus cornix being unfamiliar with japanese naming of the various corvidae i hope this will help to clarify the naming issue at least from czech perspective presumably that inaccuracy oversimplification arose in chain of translation across several languages