'Porcelain' is named after a pig — Italian 'porcella' (little sow) via the cowrie shell's smooth shape.
A hard, white, translucent ceramic material made by firing a clay body at high temperatures, used for fine pottery, electrical insulators, and dental crowns.
From French 'porcelaine,' from Italian 'porcellana,' which originally meant a type of cowrie shell. Italian 'porcellana' derives from 'porcella' (little sow, young pig), a diminutive of 'porca' (sow), from Latin 'porcus' (pig). The connection between pigs and pottery is one of etymology's great curiosities: the cowrie shell's smooth, curved opening was thought to resemble the vulva of a sow ('porcella'), and the smooth, white, translucent quality of Chinese ceramic ware reminded Italian traders of the cowrie shell's surface. Key
The etymological chain from Chinese ceramics to pig anatomy goes: the smooth white ceramic reminded Italians of the cowrie shell, and the cowrie shell's opening reminded them of a pig's vulva. So the finest product of Chinese civilization was named, by Italian merchants, after the reproductive anatomy of a farmyard animal.