I understood it to mean that they do not have a separate set of “name words” like Joseph, William, Mary, etc., which are never used other than as names.
It should be noted that some genus names are more often heard as individual names than as genus names. Examples are Melissa (lemon balm) and Vanessa (lady butterflies).
You raise a good point, and I think the best way to go in this scenario is finding a balance between a “normal” name and one that aligns with nature. This, in theory, would show your love and appreciation for your child and nature, while also not requiring much explaining to do because of their name. Such names could include Primrose, Heather, or Robin. I would advise sticking to the common name for Robin 
(assuming it’s an American Robin).
We have both these names here! Though they are spelled differently: Melisa and Vanesa. As I said, I suspect there are others and my poor scientific education is on full display.
However “lady butterflies” took me a few seconds to understand, because “lady ----” is the reference here to a woman filmed behaving poorly in public, so for example “lady Chichen Itzá” was a woman who climbed the pyramid (not allowed), “lady moneditas” was a woman who was rude to someone for using coins to pay, etc. So it took me a second because I was trying to figure out who “lady butterflies” was and what she had done.
A couple of genus names from my circle of acquaintances that pop into my mind right away are Abelia, Camellia, Iris, Rosa, Vanessa, and Veronica. I may be able to find a few more if I try to think really hard. There are also plenty of common names such as Aspen, Heather, Lily, and Willow - all students who have at times felt called out in my botany class when I was actually talking about the plants.
good point!
ohhh I like them too
I like blewit :|
yes. I don’t understand why use words that have no meaning and are just names - due to my cultural background, where everyone has a name that means something nice (almost)
Thank you all! I won’t be able to reply all but nice to know your thoughts!
On a side note - not relevant to genus name but cultural -
My partner and I are not originally from a english speaking culture (I am not white) and although we currenly live in a english speaking country, we are likely to move to another one which speak a different language. So it’s likely our kid will need to explain their origin anyway - and making it sound English probably doesn’t really help much. In this case we would rather name our kid with something that speaks our culture (or in my case, my love for the nature, which is one of my favourate thing in the world, more than my cultural background)
Some of them are meaningless (e.g. Blamada) and some appear to mean something that makes no sense. The type species of pelicans is Pelecanus onocrotalus; the species name sounds like it means “donkey rattle”, but I completely fail to see how you add “donkey” and “rattle” and get “pelican”. I think it’s more likely Pre-Greek shaped by folk etymology.
I’ve heard of Iris as a name, and Björk is Icelandic for birch. Come to think of it, Birch is a surname in English.
Yes!! Please do!! So many of them are so wonderful!
I know you said you are not Europeans, but in Europe and the Americas we mostly all have the same repetitive names of long gone/irrelevant historical figures and its all just so dreary. I hope that this is a tradition that we break, and your method is how I hope some of us can do it! : D
The other side of this is being one out of a multipack of identically named kids in your class. Seriously, in my fourth grade class, one-fifth of the room was named Rebecca. Twenty-five kids. Eleven girls. Four Becky / Beckies. One Rebecca. Our teacher threatened to just number us and have done with it, since color-coding wouldn’t have worked. At that point, I would have been delighted if my parents had named me Asphodel, or Nightshade, or Woodrose. 
Now, I’ve always liked Linnet as a name, and used it for one of my favorite D&D characters.
I don’t plan to have kids, but I have a loose rule that my pets have nature names, especially plants. Unfortunately I only made this rule after I got my second cat, Fern, so naturally I had to retroactively rename my first cat Ozzy to the genus Osmundastrum, Ozzy for short. Of course, Osmundastrum is a fern, and I couldn’t have two cats named after ferns, so I then retroactively renamed Fern to Sweetfern (which is not actually a fern!).
It’s been fun to think up nature names! I also foster dogs and while I don’t get to name them myself, the rescue seems to like nature names too. So far I’ve had Mudbug, Newt, Squirrel, and Huckleberry.
yay!!! I totally agree! So boring to have the same name over and over again
I have the same problem with my work, as a result I need to remember people’s full name - how is that easier than just have a unique short name!
Yeah I guess it varies from person to person, maybe “quirky” names would work out well for some people. I know for me however I am glad to have a simple, fairly well known first name that nobody ever mispronounces or has to ask how to spell. I already have to explain spelling and pronunciation of my last name way too often, having to do that all the time for my first name as well would be pretty annoying.
And there are some genus names that are also fairly normal human names others have mentioned, like Vanessa
It’s a pity all the nice nature related names in English are reserved for girls, boys get the boring names. I can’t see that changing anytime soon. I guess there are a few masculine names such as Reed or Robin.
and Sedge. At least in some romance novels, the male lead is Sedge. Very odd, I think.
That is definitely a cat name! “I am Osmundastrum, king of kings!” (Apologies to the memory of P.B. Shelley.)
Don’t plan on having kids so hadn’t thought about it. I don’t know anyone with a scientific name, but I do know a Lark and a Forest.