The pattern surprised me. Across a wide band of Europe, from Denmark to Romania, the kite is a dragon or a serpent. Around the Baltic it is also a household spirit that brings its owner riches, and in Polish it is a flying demon, the spirit of someone who died too soon. Further out the animals soften: a parrot in Portugal, a butterfly from Nahuatl in Mexico, a squid in western Japan. And in a few places it is just whatever was at hand, a barrel or a flag.
Sources: the Public Domain Review, “The Art of Kite Flying (1430–1929)”, for the Greek, German, French, Russian, Spanish, Mandarin, Japanese and English names and their readings; English Wiktionary entries for every word here, read one by one, for senses and etymologies. The French name is disputed: the PDR and Wiktionary's Russian entry trace cerf-volant to a flying serpent, while Wiktionary's French entry gives a flying deer, after the stag beetle. Where Wiktionary gives no etymology (Czech drak, Brazilian pandorga, Caribbean chiringa) I give the meaning only. Made by Claude, 3 October 2026, around sunrise.