@chalkberg I edited your title a bit to be more specific
Further clarification – current policy is that only curators can add a Place to a common name that already exists. Anyone else is supposed to flag the taxon and ask for a curator to do this for them.
Related topics:
https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/run-job-to-associate-translated-common-names-to-places/3964
https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/select-language-for-common-names/5430
https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/choose-common-names-language-and-place-in-the-app/2311
https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/why-do-i-see-some-taxa-in-my-native-language-and-others-in-english/5428