Did it have green chile in it?
How about Buddleia davidii from ‘butterfly bush’ to something horrible like ‘purple noseweed’ so people would plant it less?
Im not sure what I would rename, but I do want to make something clear. Renaming species because their names are “offensive” or “problematic” is a can of worms you do not want to open because whats offensive changes across place and time. How do you know an innocuous word now won’t become a slur 50 years from now? How do you know a celebrated researcher won’t do terrible things in the future? Whats considered a slur in one language could be a perfectly fine word in another language.
I would change the “ring necked duck” to the “ring billed duck” (I know they’re already sometimes called that) Ring necks have such a confusing name 
I think there are some pretty hard lines that can be drawn. And, so what if the name changes later on? Species names change due to science, or due to reclassification due to science. Why not due to an understanding that a particular word is a slur and used to punch down at a group of people?
Name changes only if they conflict with other names. Synonymy and such.
What counts as a slur? A slur in one language could be a perfectly fine word in another language. A perfectly fine word today could become the most offensive slur possible 40 years in the future. These names are meant to be resilient across space and time. What is self evident to you or I now may not be so to someone in a different country or in the future. We should all realize that no one using these scientific names is actually doing any harm to anyone.
Opening the can of worms of renaming taxa for this I think would cause more harm.
Are you talking about common names or scientific names? Because scientific names change not due to synoymy.
again, I kind of feel like your argument is not in good faith. If you can’t figure out what a slur is, I can’t help you with that because I’m certainly not going to list some examples here.
Common names differ in different countries, so it’s not like there’s some horrible cascade of complications that’s gonna happen if the country where the word is a slur changes it.
“Are you talking about common names or scientific names? Because scientific names change not due to synoymy.”
Yes, they do. Periplaneta australasiae was, due to taxonomic revisions, put into a new genus, Fortiblatta. But Fortiblatta was already taken. So it is now Validiblatta.
I know what slurs are. Again, slurs differ in place and time. A slur in one country may be a compliment in another country. An innocent word now can become a slur in the future. Scientific names are supposed to be stable across place and time.
Scientific names do not differ though
i dont know if it’s been mentioned yet but:
behold! the red spotted purple!
(img cred)
please admire how it is NEITHER RED NOR PURPLE. my new name is orange spotted blue.
Well a blue is a specific kind of butterfly that the Red-spotted Purple is very much not.
One of my minor hobbies is reading through old field guides and finding old forgotten names, because it’s like looking through your parents’ high school yearbook.
Everybody is always terribly worried that changing the names of birds will lead to pure chaos, but we’ve been doing it for as long as we’ve been giving birds names. And, well, maybe that is the root cause of all the world’s problems, I couldn’t say, but I found it quite easy to figure out which bird was meant by Red-eyed Cowbird.
I would like to rename the Solitary Sandpiper the Least Yellowlegs, because it would be funny. Yes, its legs aren’t all that yellow, but they also aren’t all that solitary.
Maybe it could be an Orange-spotted Blue Admiral?
Agreed! Let’s start with the “Common blue violet”
I mean, there has to be SOME red there, right? :)
even the other side has only orange and no red
Good idea, also Ailanthus altissima could be renamed “sewer tree” or “piss tree” in reference to its smell. Anything but “tree of heaven”.
piss tree isn’t a bad name considering that spotted lanternflies feeding en masse on the trees….well, pee down the tree
I call it the Tree from Hell since I’ve been battling an invasion of it in my yard (from neighboring yards) for more than 20 years.
Ugh. Given the amount of seeds one tree produces, I can imagine that, if the trees were gone, you’d still be battling the amount of seeds in the soil left from the trees.
That has to be one of the most grossly mis-named species since poor Oviraptor. My preferred moniker is “stink tree”. Nothing should smell that much like a neglected cat pan.
You and me both.
You see me now, a veteran
Of a thousand stink tree wars