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Now I searched this forum, there was a thread about it but no actually answers.
I know what Termagants mean, but which is the actual name?

Well, codex says termagants, so I guess it's termagants. Oddly enough, apparently it's a real word in Google's dictionary. Interesting.

And on reflection, I've been spelling it wrong for years. (having never read the 'Nids codex)

Yes, it means violent woman and its also the deity that middle-age Europeans believed that the Muslim worshiped.
Also it came from the word Tervagaunt or Tervagan. One can obviously see some connections here.
But they are often refer to as Gaunts.

I'm always fascinated to find GW's source material for codex things. My best guess (just a guess, mind) is that since they're basically identical to hormagaunts, and hormagaunts are referred to as gaunts for the obvious latter part of the name, players just adopted the name over to the termagants. Heck, I literally didn't notice until you pointed it out that termagants weren't termagaunts. I know we at the FLGS (and for years before going to the FLGS) referred to them as termagaunts.

Locclo wrote:I'm always fascinated to find GW's source material for codex things. My best guess (just a guess, mind) is that since they're basically identical to hormagaunts, and hormagaunts are referred to as gaunts for the obvious latter part of the name, players just adopted the name over to the termagants. Heck, I literally didn't notice until you pointed it out that termagants weren't termagaunts. I know we at the FLGS (and for years before going to the FLGS) referred to them as termagaunts.

They're referred to as 'gaunts' by a lot of people now because in the 4th edition codex, there was a 'Gaunt' entry in the codex. This covered anything that size that wasn't a Hormagaunt (which had its own entry). They bundled Termagants into the Gaunt entry, since it was a Gaunt with a Fleshborer and Without Number.

Jackster wrote:Yes, it means violent woman and its also the deity that middle-age Europeans believed that the Muslim worshiped.
Also it came from the word Tervagaunt or Tervagan. One can obviously see some connections here.

See also Dominatrix, Harpy and Harridan, all Tyranid creatures from Epic sharing their names with similarly disparaging terms for women. My favourite, however, is Hierodule - Greek word meaning a sacred prostitute.

Maybe Tervigon is also derived from Tervagan.
And Trygon means a triangle.