[Tweeters] Historical Perspective on Re-naming Birds

[Dennis Paulson]

I had never read this, and indeed it was very interesting. I have been involved in giving common names to close to 1000 dragonfly and damselfly species, and I can tell you that it’s a combination of hard work, great fun, and not a little frustration, as some of the species are very similar. Very few species had actual common names before a colleague and I coined them for all of the US/Canada, and then I went ahead and did so for all of Mexico and Central America and parts of South America.

Another colleague and I have been working on English names for all the 6400 species in the world, but that’s a long way from finished. Most of the English-speaking countries have them now.

There is no question that common/vernacular names are a good idea, as they seem to get a lot more amateur naturalists interested in a group when it has common names. I’ll admit I have done this with mixed emotions, as of course I know them by their scientific name, and I would have liked everyone with an interest in the group to learn them, many of which are evocative and elegant and most of which have interesting meanings in Latin or Greek.

Wouldn’t Macromia taeniolata be more fun to say than Royal River Cruiser?

And Falco peregrinus just as easy to learn as Peregrine Falcon?

And Turdus migratorius good for a chuckle?

Dennis Paulson
Seattle


> On Nov 21, 2023, at 4:33 PM, Kenneth Brown <kenbrownpls at comcast.net> wrote:

> 

> Thanks Jon, it was an interesting read, and certainly adds some perspective on the renaming issue.

>> On 11/21/2023 2:38 PM PST Jon. Anderson and Marty Chaney <festuca at comcast.net> wrote:

>>  

>>  

>> Bob Righter from Denver posted this on the Colorado birding chat group.  I thought it might be an interesting read for those of us who are 'anxiously' awaiting action from the AOS on revising the Common Names of birds that are named after People.

>>  

>> "From chatter on the internet emerges an interesting article by Ludlow Griscom written in 1947 “Common Sense in Common names.” Griscom, was a power house in the early 1900s and greatly influenced Roger Tory Peterson. The full article can be accessed through Google. I’ve taken the liberty of just featuring the last paragraph which I thought was the most poignant to our conversation on Bird Names:

>> 

>> "NO “simple and logical principles” for vernacular nomenclature can be formulated.  There are far too many birds; their variations, relationships, and ranges are not simple or logical. Their habits and habitats change from season to season, from one section of the continent to another, from century to century. Which season, which habitat, which section of the country is to be the basis for the “appropriate or associative” name?"

>>  

>> The article can be read at https://sora.unm.edu/sites/default/files/journals/wilson/v059n03/p0131-p0138.pdf <https://sora.unm.edu/sites/default/files/journals/wilson/v059n03/p0131-p0138.pdf>

>>  

>> Enjoy!

>>  - Jon. Anderson

>>  Olympia

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