I recently found and had id’d Oxycarenus arctatus a not uncommon Hemipteran and in some World areas a pest, in others its just a colourful bug. Its common, non-scientific, name is Coon Bug.
Certainly in Australia, where I am, that is not a name that would be used or accepted in normal language. I appreciate that history may suggest keeping an offensive name but I feel strongly that scientists should lead by example; while we still can. Maybe change it to Black & White Seed Bug, at least that is descriptive.
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You can flag for curation on the relevant taxon page.
Welcome to the forum, Cindy!
If you would like to read more about this topic, here are a couple of related threads:
https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/managing-offensive-common-names/12358 (50+ replies)
https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/offensive-scientific-names/36028 (200+ replies)
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Sorry, but if that’s its name, that’s its name. There is a notability criterion for names. It seems that it’s also called “cotton seed bug” but that name usually refers to Oxycarenus hyalinipennis. Meanwhile, your suggested name of “Black & White Seed Bug” usually refers to Dieuches sp.
The name can only be replaced if another English name that refers unambiguously (or at least less ambiguously than “coon bug”) to Oxycarenus arctatus becomes widely used.
The situation with offensive names is probably worse for scientific names, as the principle of priority prevents them from being changed. Eponyms are also generally more common with scientific names.
However, in 2024, the International Botantical Congress voted to replace cafer/caffer, cafferiana, cafra/caffra, caffraria, caffrorum and caffrum with afer, aferiana, afra, afraria, afrorum and afrum in organism names covered by the ICNafp.
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If I saw a black and white bug called a coon bug I would assume it was named after the markings on a raccoon, but that might just be American slang.
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It’s considered pejorative in the US, too. A fact that I was unaware of growing up as a Northerner, in an era when my only contact with the term was the old TV show about Daniel Boone and his “coonskin” cap. Davy Crockett wore one too, in popular myth.
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The Entomological Society of America has a process for this: https://www.entsoc.org/publications/common-names/better-common-names-project
Maybe an Australian society has something similar or you can submit the proposal to the ESAmerica
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