The author of this piece may have consulted with the wrong experts. I had always learned that the name of the bird has nothing to do with the country of Turkey at all.
Christopher Columbus started his trip to the New World (in search of a passage to India) on the same day in 1492 that the Jews were expelled from Spain by Ferdinand and Isabella, whose marriage had united most of the Iberian peninsula. There were several Jews who joined his voyage. Among them was Luis de Torres, who was hired on as an interpreter: since Columbus expected to get to India he wanted someone who could translate, and Torres spoke several languages including Hebrew and Arabic. Torres was the first European to disembark from Columbus' boats.
The story was that Torres saw these wild birds and called them "tuki", adapting the Hebrew word for pheasant which is found in the book of I Kings at 10:22.
I understand that in Spanish a turkey is called el turqueo. It would be interesting for a Spanish speaker to confirm or deny this.
By the way, the expulsion of the Jews from Spain was met by a response from one leading Old World ruler, who remarked that the Spanish were throwing out their best citizens. This ruler then sent ships to the ports of Spain, offering free transport to any Jews who wanted to move to his country. Tens of thousands did so, beginning the Sephardic Jewish migration to the Eastern Mediterranean countries. That leader was the Sultan of...Turkey, whose Ottoman fighters had captured Istanbul from the Byzantines fewer than 50 years earlier.
They also call a truck, el trucko. Brilliant, ay!