I believe that many of these come from the use of French in England amongst the aristocracy after the Norman conquest. Thus 'pork' (porc) is the posh word, 'pig' is the vulgar peasant (or English) word. I don't have any reference for this, but I heard it somewhere in my travels. Correct me if I'm wrong, but it does sound like a convincing story.

Words for meat differ from the words for the corresponding animal
Is it possible to use Flatiron's resourcefull (ODM) in express.js?
