Apologies if this has been asked before. Shouldn’t we have a policy change about common names? The current approach is a very hard-nosed one; “If it hasn’t been published in a book before, don’t use it”. However, iNaturalist seems like a great place to start new common names! Common names are much…

[image] silaseckhardt: However, iNaturalist seems like a great place to start new common names! iNat’s not a place to generate taxa, and it (or especially this forum, which is for discussing iNat issues) is also not a place for coming up with common names. This is not to say that taxonomy or …

It seems like some of the confusion here stems from differing knowledge of how iNat implements the usage of common names. It could be useful to review that info here: https://www.inaturalist.org/pages/curator+guide#names Also Tony made a nice tutorial of how some common name functions work here: h…

I do not know who McGown is or was but I can tell you straight out of the gate that “Thick-billed Longspur” gives me a lot more information about what I may be seeing. If he or she is important to the history (perhaps the person who described it?) of the organism, that would remain with the species…

I don’t think anyone has ever legitimately been offended by that name and I not understand why that one of all the possible bird names was changed.

I don’t have an opinion about that name change. But it’s an example of one where the original name was not “wildly offensive” since you have to dig a little to find the offense.

There’s a very long discussion about scientific names in topic: Where Do I Start With Pronouncing Scientific Names? that’s a bit related and worth reading. Personally, I agree with @rayray ’s rant insofar that it’s worth learning the scientific names and maybe letting go of the importance of common …

I dug into research and never found what made it offensive, hence my point.

I personally appreciate common names, and if there are none, i dont´t mind if someone invents new ones and promotes the usage of them. If creatures are becoming popular, I do´t see the advantige in using sientific names outsight of sientific matters. As a matter of fact, there were a lot of common…

https://www.science.org/content/article/reversal-ornithologists-yank-confederate-general-s-name-bird

a few of our plants have the Afrikaans common name Juffertjie-roer-by-die-nag Not awful because it is as if a young woman walked down the (evening) path, and left a trail of her perfume behind her. Since we hike in daytime, that perfume is ‘what is says in the field guide’

Where Toyon is the ‘English’ common name? But not in fact English, not so?

New Common Names For Species: Policy Change?

General

Topic		Replies	Views
What to do about silly common names? General common-names	53	2401	August 5, 2024
Common names from "not good enough" sources Curators	72	5557	November 16, 2021
Common names invented on iNat General common-names	192	12735	March 29, 2023
Inventing common names redux General	68	2566	May 6, 2023
Managing offensive common names Curators	49	12296	May 19, 2020

New Common Names For Species: Policy Change?

Related topics