Thoughts on Changing Bird Names

If we look at Version 8.0.8 of the ABA Checklist, only 113 of the 1,123 species are named after people.

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I, speaking only for my own feeble mind, am so very tired of these seemingly endless Renaming topics. Surely, the same arguments emerge with each iteration?? No? Well, carry on.

Donā€™t mind me (Iā€™m grumpy)ā€¦ carry on as long as itā€™s still fun for you, as long as there is anything new to be said. ā€¦ and, even then! Surely, there are still nuances to considerā€¦ Carry on!

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I have to disagree with your ā€œkeep politics out of birdingā€ part. Sadly, itā€™s become somewhat political either way at this point, however it certainly makes more of a political statement to change things rather than leave them as they are.

Also, someone else said that they hadnā€™t heard of a proposal to change hundreds of bird names, I donā€™t believe there was ever a formal proposal. Itā€™s a change in AOS policy that will likely change every honorific bird name, and thereā€™s talk of removing place names from all bird names as well. That adds up to hundreds.

When I was small people talked about Canada jays. When I got older they talked about grey jays but they spelled it gray jays for some reason. Now they talk about Canada jays again. So what? Anybody with a hot clue knows theyā€™re whiskeyjacks.

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I completely agree with you, Raymie. A name is a name, and unless itā€™s actively offensive, I donā€™t see the point in changing it. I also agree that it might make new birders give up. If the birdsā€™ common names keep changing, no one will know what to call them anymore!

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How is ā€œMcCownā€™s Longspurā€ easier to remember than ā€œthick-billed longspurā€? Iā€™m bad with names, and would much rather adopt a descriptor than try and remember another random colonialistā€™s last name in relation to a bird. If memorizing names is what is going to make you give up on birding, that will likely happen regardless of if a couple of names change. When I was a new birder, what made me want to quit was the community, until I found people who werenā€™t rude to a young, new birder.

A relatively small set of bird names need to change once. Not asking for a yearly rename of all birds.

Iā€™d argue itā€™s actively offensive to honor racist white guys, and alienates new birders who know their history.

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It is offensive.

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I have yet to hear anything from actual minorities on the issue, the people who seem to think this is offensive are white people telling the minorities what to think!

The AOS meeting that just happened was really more like political propaganda than an actual discussion - there was no discussion for why NOT to change bird names, people were probably scared of getting ā€œcancelledā€.

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Thatā€™s not an article about the debate - if offers no argument from the people against the changes.

I guess Iā€™ll just quote what I said in that thread:

Obviously inclusiveness is valuable, but I suspect birds being named after the obscure guys who made them known to science is the last thing on the list of reasons reducing the ability of people to get into birding. Thereā€™s a valid question as to whether they deserve to be honoured in common and scientific names for that contribution, but they arenā€™t being honoured for anything else about their lives or beliefs.

With regards to decolonization, the AOS canā€™t change scientific names (that was proposed for a flicker subspecies recently), and the practice of describing species with Latin names as their real names could well be considered colonialist. Colonization has unfortunately happened, we canā€™t undo it, and any efforts to undo it will have no clear limit. We could go as far as removing the reference to Amerigo Vespucci in American Robin! Cape May and Nashville Warblers seem more out of place to me.

Birds are one of the few taxa that have standardized common names, and thatā€™s only in English as far as I know. That seems valuable to me, when I compare it with the chaos of insect or plant names, especially when newly coming to the hobby and having to learn all the names. However, I still see people using ā€œNorthern Orioleā€ and ā€œRufous-sided Towheeā€, and those were changed for normal taxonomic reasons. Given that thereā€™s a lot more resistance here and itā€™s affecting so many more species, I think a change as radical as this would break any standardization we have. Although perhaps that is moderated by everyone using eBird, which would presumably force everyone to adapt. Either way Iā€™m guessing in a generation it would be mostly forgotten. I will admit my main resistance is just resistance to change, and Iā€™d get over it eventually.

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Iā€™d like to get rufus sided towee and common egret back. Oneā€™s got nice red sides and the other is pretty common.

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I appreciate that change can be difficult. It sucks when things that seemed stable and reliable suddenly shift. But in my experience, after some initial discomfort, we adapt surprisingly quickly. My point about politics is that the naming of birds has always been political. There are names that commemorate powerful figures who had barely any connection to the bird itself. Those names are political. So itā€™s not that this issue has become political, itā€™s that some of us, who didnā€™t even realise names were political, have become more aware of the charged, and political, history of these names. I think the whole discussion actually represents an interesting opportunity for us to learn more about the history of the US (and of other parts of the world, but this conversation seems most advanced in the US) and understand aspects of that history that are glossed over in the formal education system.

You asked about what people of other ethnic backgrounds think about this issue. I suspect that changing bird names is low on the list of priorities for most. But these proposals, as I see them, donā€™t come from complaints from minority groups. Rather, they come from a desire to do something that is within our remit as bird people that shows respect for others. From a recognition that there are existing names that are anything but respectful. Changing these names is a small mark of care and respect, and the fervour of opposition to it shows, perhaps, why this conversation is needed.

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AOS should next consider changing common names that are disrespectful to the birds themselves. Why is one prairie-chicken Lesser and the other Greater? Why are some sandpipers, flycatchers, auklets, etc. the Least? Seems to suggest they are of lower value, perhaps less worthy of concern, even if all it means is that the bird is small or smaller. Plus, snipe, dotterel, and sapsucker just sound bad.

Joking aside (and I was joking), there was a proposal among some herpetologists to omit the word Common from common names as it implies that the species is widespread, abundant, and of no conservation concern, although it could be in decline and might be not so common. Maybe thatā€™s a good idea, or maybe a bit of overreach. Once you start fiddling with names, I suspect there can be a desire among some to keep going until you achieve perfection.

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Taking a deep breath here and trying to not get too steamed by this commentary.

To be clear, this topic began with you stating/asking:

Curiosity is fine but it implies willingness to listen.

The birding worldā€™s obsession with standardized common names has always seemed strange to me and not just because of the tendency to name things after dead bigots and places where they arenā€™t found. Outside of a circle of true believers, nobody gives a sweet damn what the AOS or ABA calls anything. Where Iā€™m from the bird is called a whiskeyjack, a name with roots in Indigenous culture, and quibbles within the ABA/AOS communities about gray jay/Canada jay are never going to change that. Talk to any prairie farmer about a turkey vulture and youā€™re going to have to explain that thatā€™s the fancy-pants name for a buzzard. If non-birders are even aware of the existence of a McCownā€™s longspur they may very well call it something else already.

The business of confronting history and moving forward is not easy in a lot of ways. If a society is not capable of agreeing on something as small as names for birds that donā€™t offend it speaks poorly of the prospects for healing deeper wounds. I donā€™t care what McCown did. Heā€™s long gone and if his name has negative connotations for some people then I am more than willing to stop using it for that reason alone, no questions asked.

As for not hearing from ā€œactual minoritiesā€, the North American birding crowd is pretty white-bread and minority voices are not easy to find. Thatā€™s changed a bit of late but has a long way to go if weā€™re ever going to reflect the actual diversity of the people who live here. My sense is that the North American iNat crowd also skews pretty heavily white. The suggestion that naming things after Confederate officers is only objectionable to whiners is not going to help change that. It should not be necessary for people to complain about offensive practices for the practice to change. Self-reflection and willingness to change are signs of maturity, regardless of the yammering from pseudo-patriots who wrap themselves in the flag and denounce all change as weakness.

I am not an ā€œactual minorityā€. Iā€™m a fat, old, white male who takes citizenship seriously and I accept that the responsibilities of citizenship include welcoming neighbours whose sense of their place in the community is rooted in very different experiences of history than my own. That means paying attention, not insisting that they give me a list of their grievances for consideration and cherry-picking the ones that suit my priorities.

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Itā€™s a ā€œsmall gestureā€ that may be much more trouble than itā€™s worth.

And I donā€™t think any bird in question was named with politics in mind. These proposed changes obviously do have politics in mind. Are the old names political? I guess it depends on your definition, I would argue no. But clearly these new names are more political than the old ones, as these names changes are being made almost solely because of politics.

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Iā€™m also super worried about how far this can reach - you could make an argument to change any bird name, Iā€™m worried that once this starts it may be hard for the AOS to stop.

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If the AOS keeps changing names continuously in some form of purity spiral to the point that itā€™s impossible for anyone but the people proposing the changes to keep up, then standardized usage will stop and bird names will go back to being the same as any other taxon. People will just use whatever names they know. A loss, but not a huge deal.

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Holy straw man, Batman!

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It isnā€™t, unless you learned the species as that, plus the fact that the name McCown has been part of the scientific binomial from the birdā€™s original description. Erasing eponyms from common names is one thing, but the scientific name ā€“ however inaccurate or unappealing ā€“ lives on, unless the ICZN radically changes its rules about priority and adoption of generic names and specific epithets.

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I donā€™t think any kind of bird name is particularly easier or harder to remember - theyā€™re just names, they take some time to learn but not too much.

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