The Spanish word 'pitufo' (meaning 'smurf') has an interesting origin from Catalan folklore. It comes from the Catalan word 'patufet', which referred to a tiny child character in Catalan folklore. 'Patufet' itself derived from the Catalan word 'patuf' meaning 'little child'. When the Smurfs cartoon was being translated into Spanish, the translators chose 'pitufo' as the translation, likely due to the connection with this small folkloric character, as both share characteristics of being small, cute creatures.

Unlike many Spanish words, 'pitufo' is relatively unique in Spanish vocabulary and doesn't have many closely related Spanish words, as it was specifically adapted to name these cartoon characters based on the Catalan folklore connection.

There aren't any etymologically related English words to 'pitufo', as the English word 'smurf' comes from a completely different origin - it was adapted from the original Dutch 'smurf' created by the Belgian cartoonist Peyo. This is a good example of how different languages can take different approaches to naming the same concept!