Some historians suggest that the "piggy" in piggy bank refers not to the porcine barnyard animal but to a 15th-century English term for a type of orange clay, "pygg," used for making household jars, dishes, and, perhaps, receptacles for holding coins. Centuries later, so the story goes, a potter, when asked to make a pygg bank, shaped the bank in the form of a pig. In the early 20th century, banks for saving coins appeared in the shapes of many different animals, figures, and buildings.