The English, who have often been poor at spelling French words, stumbled badly over the synonym for “hedgehog” that the Normans brought to England, spelling hurcheon a number of ways before finally settling on urchin for a time and also applied the name to a mischievous child, because the urchin or hedgehog was popularly believed to be a mischievous elf in disguise. People eventually stopped using urchin as a synonym for “hedgehog,” but not for an impish child. Neither was the name sea urchin abandoned. This spiny creature was originally named for its resemblance to the urchin or hedgehog and once was called the sea hedgehog.