This post is inspired by a recent flag discussion of a weird common name in which I was made aware that some users have used the common names list of wildspecies.ca as a source for common names which as far as I can tell is a list of common names published by a Canadian government entity.
https://www.wildspecies.ca/common-names
While my current disagreement is specifically with this list I would say that it includes all such published lists, regardless if they are published by governments or NGOs.
Reading through old posts on similar topics such as
https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/common-names-invented-on-inat/27452
or
https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/common-names-invented-on-wikipedia/47269
I assume this is a topic that makes people have strong opinions one way or the other. It plays into how much one considers it right to regulate details or how much people should be free to do what they want. I personally come down on the “more regulation” side of things and I want to explain why.
iNaturalist explicitly prohibits the use of common names that are newly invented. We as users are not supposed to just invent a name if there isn’t already one. In the old discussions users have made the slightly facetious point that “all names are invented, who cares”. Yes, all names are invented, but it’s only a name if it’s accepted by other people. The word “table” is an invention but I can’t just change it to “tworble” and expect anyone to know what I’m talking about. I assume that the “no invention” rule is based on exactly that, it’s only a name if it actually makes it possible for anyone to know what I’m talking about.
The above mentioned list on wildspecies.ca is not a collection of common names found in literature and vernacular use, it is explicitly an attempt to systematically invent a common name for every species. It is also a very bad attempt at that. It uses quite baffling “logic” that produces bizarre and in some instances outright wrong common names. To give one example for the outright wrong, the list gives “foldingdoor tarantula” for one of the few trapdoor spiders found in Canada, Antrodiaetus pacificus. This is based on the logic that mygalomorphs are all named tarantula, a decision that makes it quite clear that no one involved in the creation of this list knows anything about the topic. “Tarantula” is the accepted common name of one family, Theraphosidae. Antrodiaetus pacificus is not a member of that family, there are in fact no (wild) tarantulas in Canada. There are countless examples of this type, this is just the first that jumped out at me.
And without fail Antrodiaetus pacificus has currently the common name “foldingdoor tarantula” listed here on iNaturalist - there is after all an outside source for this name. Making amateurs believe there are tarantulas in British Columbia.
I argue that lists that don’t set out to collect existing names but attempt to invent common names are well-meaning but wholeheartedly misguided and should be prohibited as sources for common names. Just because someone else came up with it makes it no less of an invention. If it isn’t an accepted name - and by that I mean is mentioned in several sources, can be found as a hit in Google and is used among interested naturalists - it shouldn’t be used.