‘Hawaiian Goose’ just sounds like a goose from Hawaii, not a specific and very special species. I agree that Nene makes more sense. It would be like calling the 'I’iwi bird just a “Hawaiian Honeycreeper”. Sure, I suppose it fits, but why not call it a name that has more meaning to that species and the culture and language the species is named for?
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I feel like naming them after the person who discovered or described them makes more sense than naming them after another famous naturalist unless they were heavily involved in the research of the species in particular.
So many American sparrows just need a one-word nickname, because that is easier to remember when too many of them are drab and have very little to actually describe them with.
You said it better than I did… :)
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Audubon? Wilson? Nuttall? Pretty well-known names in the natural sciences I think.
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I would rename everything.
Why? Two reasons:
- a lot of names are not as cool as they could be.
- I would love to to annoy everyone on earth, all at once. It’s just too much temptation.
- I have the personality of a cat. Which is and isn’t a third reason.
But seriously, it would also annoy me, so no. I wouldn’t rename everything. Just a few strategic creatures and any with lame names.
Just because I want to selectively abuse power, I might do something like changing giraffe to leopard-stretch-goat, all bats would be lethurblooku.
lethurblooku-Chihuahua for flying fox, mosquito-lethurblooku for vampire-bat etc. Although, lethurblooku is better than bat. So win-win.
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Giraffes where actually once called Camelopard and I love it. They only turned into “giraffes” when an egyptian leader wanted to impress a french leader by gifting a baby camelopard named “Zaraffa” to Paris 
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If I could rename any existing species I’d rename apatosaurus meaning “deceptive lizard” to Hesperocanthus meaning “Western Spine”. Still has cool latin origin while also changing the negative/villain-like nature of “deceptive” in the name 
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SNEEZEWEED. Who the heck came up with such an awful name for such a beautiful native flower? I’ve seen some called it “Helen’s Flower” after the genus name Helenium, and I kind of like that.
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Are we free to discuss both common names and binomials?
I can think of a few specific names and a broader group of names -
To change the names that do them a disservice. The skaapteker, Psammophylax rhombeatus, does not kill sheep and is pretty well harmless to all but lizards, amphibians, and tiny mammals. Equally I’d be happy to leave the name in place to highlight the ignorance of some people who named things.
The group of names that I’d perhaps change are some type species. Vanellus vanellus, lovely as it is doesn’t seem that representative of Vanellus species in general, though the eggs and chicks look very similar. I assume it’s a case of it being European and so being the first to be Vanellus species described.
I always think that they should rename animals named after a person, as it makes more sense if it has something to do with the actual animal.
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Nice name
I have long thought that about places named after a person, too – although occasionally, by coincidence, it also has something to do with the place. Take Greenville for instance. It is named after Nathanael Greene, a hero of the American Revolutionary War; but this one, I could see keeping because it also describes the verdure of the environs.
Honestly, any flowering plant that obviously has a purple flower has the word blue in the name is literally a huge pet peeve for me. Just replace ‘blue’ with ‘purple’ or a non-color name entirely.
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I would rename the frogfish to toadfish because it looks way more like a toad than a frog, and I would give the name frogfish to the mudskipper, since it acts like a frog.
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I would rename American hog-peanut to ground bean. The first name is just so ugly.
I feel like a lot of people would disagree with me on this, but I think the American Robin should be called the Orange-bellied Thrush. The American Robin is not related to Robins at all!
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Or the redbelly thrush?
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I like that one to.
Be grateful, South Africa has the Cape Robin-Chat - Dessonornis caffer, which sounds like all the birds jammed in one, with Cape added on just to avoid any (reasonable) confusion!
Now let’s just skip over the fact that it’s actually a flycatcher…
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