How Cheetahs Got Their Names By Carlie Lastine In the beginning cheetahs were not called cheetahs. They were just called cats, just normal cats. But one day, the animals, Leopard, Lion, Hyena, and Cheetah decided to play checkers out in the big field. Lion boasted, “I dare you to verse me in a game of checkers!” The normal cat answered, “I will verse you any time!” They went to go get rocks to make the checker games. They started to argue who was red and who was black. Lion roared, “I am going to be black and you are red or I’ll fight you.” The normal cat sighed, “fine” Lion had jumped five of the normal cat’s players and the normal cat jumped only two of lion’s players. Hyena was watching the game and saw a great chance of playing a trick on lion. Hyena tripped Lion. Lion just looked away but Hyena was cracking up. Then Hyena said,” ha you just fell flat on your face!” Leopard just sat there laughing loudly. Lion chased hyena and scared him away. When none of the animals were looking. Cheetah moved his player and jumped over their players. But when those animals turned around they saw that their players were jumped. They chased normal cat down the street. Normal cat had to be so fast so no one would catch him. Lion yelled, “You are a Cheater! From now on everyone will call you cheetah!” So that is why cheetahs are called cheetahs and they run so fast..