[Jim K]

Well, the cock was not originally called the hammer because it didn't hammer anything. The term hammer was not generally used as it is today until the percussion period. And "hammer" really was used for what is now called the frizzen (I don't know why; it didn't hammer anything either); it was also called the "frizzle" and the "steel".

Another term used for a flintlock was "fucile", from the Latin "focus" meaning hearth or fire. That became the French word "fusil" and the English "fuzee", both meaning a flintlock or a gun using a flintlock. Later it came to mean a light musket, especially one carried by officers or NCOs.

In modern terminology, the term "snaphaunce" is used for guns in which the pan cover and the frizzen are separate* and the pan cover usually has to be moved away manually before firing. I have seen some snaphaunces which had an arm that moved the pan cover back when the "hammer" was cocked, a very clever solution to the existing problem, though the combination of the frizzen and pan cover, the true flintlock, was the real answer within the technology of the time.

*Not always so; some of the old books use the term snaphaunce for any flintlock with a "snapping" cock as opposed to a wheellock.

Jim