Common names invented on iNat

What I have found to be very common is common names standard on iNaturalist that disagree with those in published field guides. For instance, my Peterson Field Guide calls Coreopsis gigantea the Giant Sea Dahlia. Well, it isn’t in the genus Dahlia, but that’s how common names work; there are plenty of plants with, for instance, “lily” in their colloquial names that are not even Liliaceae. But when you find it on iNaturalist, it has had a taxonomic change to Leptosyne gigantea, with the common name Giant Coreopsis – again, the common name does not reflect its current genus.

If the common name is not going to match the genus anyway, why not call it what the field guide calls it? That way, we at least have consistency with the published literature. Since the Peterson guide in question was published in 1976, its common name has seniority over iNat’s. If we were talking scientific names, that would settle the matter. If, as @charlie suggests, we have “official” common names, how to we choose which one is official?

In many cases, I think the in-use names should be changed to what was in-use before. If I went to the Leptosyne gigantea taxon page and “changed” the common name to Giant Sea Dahlia, I would only be restoring an earlier name.

That’s kinda what I’m saying.

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