| German | Schmetterling Falter | not from schmettern, but schlagen, an old word for “butter”; Middle High German vivalter |
| Dutch | vlinder, vijwouter | probably related to German Falter |
| Danish | sommerfugl | |
| Norwegian | sommerfugl, fivelde | |
| Swedish | fjäril | fjärran: “distant”? |
| Latin | papillio | also means “tent”, hence also “pavilion”; see also Farsi |
| French | papillon | from Latin |
| Italian | farfalla | from Latin |
| Spanish | mariposa | posar: “to perch” or “rest”, mari- indicates “effeminate”? |
| Portuguese | borboleta | borboletear: “to flutter”, borbulhar: “to bubble”? |
| Russian | бабочка | (babochka) баба: “peasant woman”, бабушка (babushka): “granny” |
| Polish | motyl | cognate with ‘moth’ |
| Slovenian | metúlj | cognate with ‘moth’. Same in Czech |
| Croatian | leptir | from Ancient Greek. cognate with taxonomic term lepidoptera. |
| Greek | πεταλούδα | (petalutha) |
| Romainian | fluture | apparently from Albanian. |
| Albanian | flutur | perhaps cognate with words meaning ‘wing’ or ‘leaf’, or else from Latin, cognate with ‘fluctuate’ |
| Latvian | tauriņš | taure: “trumpet” ? |
| Lithuanian | drugelis | |
| Scottish | dalán-dé | “god’s fire” |
| Irish | féileacán | |
| Farsi | پروانه | (parvâne) |
| Cherokee | ᎧᎹᎹ | (ka-ma-ma) |
| Navajo | k’aalógii | |
| Indonesian | kupu-kupu | |
| Hawawiian | pulelehua | also means “blown on the air” |
| Sanskrit | भंबीरा | (bhaṅbīrī, to run swiftly) |
| Hindi | तितली | (titlī) |
| Hebrew | פרפר | (parpur) |
| Arabic | فراش | (farâsh), from the verb meaning “to spread out” |
| Inuktitut | ᑕᕐᕋᓕᑭᑖᖅ | (tarralikitaaq) |
| Hungarian | pillangó | from pillog “to blink; twinkle, flicker” |
| Finnish | perhonen | perhoné: “fly”? |
| Turkish | kelebek | |
| Korean | 나비 | (nabi) related to words meaning ‘flutter’. |
| Chinese | 蝴蝶 | (hú tíe) The bit 虫 on the left side of each character indicates “insect” or “worm”. Each character is sometimes used independently and in combinations with other characters to connote “butterfly”. |
See also Butterfly Etymology.
Some info from Wiktionary.