Is Pikachu named after Pika rodents in real life?

Question

I was just searching around different things about mammals evolution tree, when I saw that there is actually a rodent called Pika, Now, I checked the soruce of the wiki, seems to be from a national park's website, I just wanted to make sure it actually is an animal.

My thought is, could this maybe be one of the reasons behind Pikachu's name?

Link to wikisite: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pika

Comments

I would normally say to put this on the Meta section's etymology errors page, but the pika is actually deconfirmed as part of Pikachu's name origin. It only comes from "pikapika" and "chuchu".
https://web.archive.org/web/20211108083831/https://www.pokemon.com/us/pokemon-news/creator-profile-the-creators-of-pikachu/
http://edition.cnn.com/ASIANOW/time/magazine/99/1122/pokemon6.fullinterview2.html

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Erm acktually a pika is not a rodent but rather a lagomorph (rabbit+hare order)

Answer 1

Nope. I thought that too, but it's actually that 'Pika' is Japanese for sparkle, and 'Chu' is Japanese for the noise mice make. Source: Here, at the bottom: https://pokemondb.net/pokedex/pikachu