Why is a castle called a Rook? Why don't they just give one name for it?

castle is a verb. rook is a noun.

Castle is noun too, but I think rook comes from some asian or arab origin.

Some people call them "castles" but the correct term is "rooks." That's why R is used tn notate a rook.

and why is the horsey headed guy called a knight too??

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Wooden chess sets would cost too much if the knights had a guy sitting on them lol.

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They could use C...

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The answer is not accurate.

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They do just give one name to it. Nobody ever decided it was supposed to be a castle. The uneducated call them that because they're unaware of chess terminology.

okay, so castle is not legal?

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Castle is not correct.

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They could use any of the other 25 letters in the alphabet but they would all not count. ;)

It's also more like a tower then a whole castle. The term "castling" then makes sense because the king uses a tower to castle himself into protection. Tower should be the name really. No clue where the heck they got the name "rook" from. Because the towers are high or reach far?

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That is called a "joke." A rare find on this site...

I believe it comes from the original terminolgy. The Rook piece was originally a chariot, but became a tower when it moved to the west. 

Rook, or some derivative, means chariot in one of the Asian languages. (correct me if I'm wrong)

The Rook is called a Rook because chess hustlers used to rook people out of their money. The Bishop is called a Bishop because the Church insisted that chess be Christianized. The Night is called a Night because most chess was played at Night after the day's work was done. The pawn is called a pawn becasuse broken-dawn chess players would pawn their beautiful hand-crafted chess sets for food money. 

A Rook is also a crow-like bird, native to Europe

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If only they'd named it a "Crow", then everyone could use "C" in their notation and be happy. ;)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rook_(chess)

 

Not that hard, guys.

a rook is a bird!

o.O