Why do so many flutes, share the name 'flute'?

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What I mean is, is there are lot of woodwind instruments around the world that are considered to be flutes, such as Armenian flute, the Native American flute, the Pan flute, the concert flute, the xiao flute, the shakuhachi flute, etc. But when these instruments are all invented by different cultures, why are they all called flutes, when their designs are different, unless there is something similar in the designs that make them so?

For example a guitar only refers to one type of 6 string instruments, but no one calls banjos or shamisens, or mandolins guitars. So why is flute synomous around the world with different instruments? I was just curious . Thanks.

Not sure of the answer, but I'll think aloud a bit. "Flute" does seem to be our default name for any foreign reedless wind instrument. (Though I'm more used to seeing just "panpipes" and "shakuhachi" alone, without the word "flute" added.) I wonder if it's a way of thinking that goes back to Renaissance and Baroque Western Europe. Back then, there were only two common reedless woodwind types here: the "flute a bec" (which we now call a "recorder" for some reason) and the "transverse flute" (ancestor of the standard Classical flute). In most languages, both had some variant of "flute" in their names. So as Westerners encountered other similar instruments, we extended the "flute" label to cover them.

Europeans of the period knew a much greater variety of stringed instruments, some of them of Middle Eastern origins. Lutes, rebecs, viols, guitars, fiddles, citterns, lyres etc. etc. And there was a habit of coining new names when new variants came along, like the theorbo, which is a modified lute. So that early variety has made our culture less likely to look at a sitar and call it a "guitar".

That's my theory, anyway. I'd be curious to see if anyone's done some actual research into this!

Why do so many people share the name "Human"?

origins are from: from Old French flaut, flaute (musical) "flute", from Old Provençal flaut, which is of uncertain origin; perhaps imitative or from Latin flare "to blow" (from PIE root *bhle- "to blow"); perhaps influenced by Provençal laut "lute"; Flue, a duct or exhaust pipe, late Middle English (denoting the mouthpiece of a hunting horn): of unknown origin. Current senses date from the late 16th century.. one exhausts one's breath through such ducts or wind instruments, hence the name flute. of course there are two main types- the end-blown or block flute/Flûte à bec/recorder, and the transverse we are all familiar with.

When folks encounter strange things in alien cultures, or in alien natural ecosystems, they tend to make analogies with things they are familiar with, and to name alien things after familiar things.

English settlers named a red breasted bird common in the eastern USA after a red breasted bird they knew in England, "the robin". Even though the two birds are not even related.

In most north american Indian languages the word for "horse" is a long phrase that means "super dog", or "wonder dog", because for thousands of years the only beast of burden Native north americans had was the dog. Suddenly a few centuries ago they were able to get this new animal from Spanish explorers that does everything a dog does...but does it a thousand times better than a dog does it. So its a dog with a red S on its chest, and a cape! That despite the fact that horses are not zoologically akin to dogs at all. An exception were the Arapaho who call horses "the new elks". Morphologically, and zoologically horses probably are more akin to elks than they are to most other north american wildlife.