Common name

For Wikipedia conventions on common names see: Wikipedia:Naming conventions (common names), Wikipedia:Naming conventions, the Wikipedia Style Manual WP:STYLE

Definition

In science, a common name is any commonly-used name by which a species, other taxon, or other entity is known, other than its scientific name. The use of common names in this way is no different from the way we name any object around us.

Scientific and common names

Common names are generally easy to remember and pronounce but apply over limited geographic range so, in English, a common name like Cat might be "common" to the entire Western world while the common name Moggie, applied to the same genus, has only local use. Many scientifically different organisms may have the same common name and one particular scientific entity might have many common names. Scientific names use Latin as a universal language and are therefore the same in any part of the world; they act as unique identifiers for an organism. As common names do not have a universal language and script it is easy to forget that any global listing needs to be in many languages and many scripts: there also needs to be assurance that the names are referring to the same scientific entities. For an attempt to assemble a multilingual, multiscript database of crop plants see . Scientific names denote a rank (level) of naming (classification or sorting into kinds), so Homo sapiens is a species, Homo is a genus, and Bellis perennis 'Aucubifolia' is a cultivar. Common names may or may not denote this sort of ranking so, in botany, common name Oak is equivalent to the rank of genus Quercus, and Red Oak the rank of species, Quercus rubra but in Australia, and depending on the context, the common name Bacon-and-eggs can refer to plants at the scientific level of family, genus or species.

Structure

Almost all cultures name objects using one or two words. When made up of two words (binomial) this name usually takes the form of a basic name (often with no particular meaning, just a sound, like salt, dog or star) and another word that helps describe the first. This is a noun-adjective binomial just like our own names. So, there is a basic name like Simpson and another name that describes the particular kind of Simpson, say Homer Simpson. It is not difficult to think of other "common name" binomials like lap dog, sea salt, or "film star". In this way many common names have the same structure as two-word scientific names (Latin binomials) and it seems reasonably to assume that scientific usage arose out of this common usage.

Presentation

Scientific names and the way they are written are governed by international codes of nomenclature. These codes are not legally binding but are observed very closely by the scientific community. "Obeying" the rules means that everyone is following the same conventions and this assists communication, especially across international boundaries. For common names there are no such international organisations and agreed ground-rules. For this reason we have a range of conventions because books, periodicals and organisations develop their own policies for common names and the way they are written. The Wikipedia Style Manual WP:STYLE states "Common (vernacular) names of flora and fauna should be written in lower case—for example, oak or lion." However, allowance is made for a few exceptions. See head of this article for Wikipedia procedures.

Origin and meaning

Most common names will have arisen at some historical point in time and passed on by oral tradition. They will often indicate something about the organism's appearance, origin or use.[being developed]

Biology

Broadly defined, a common name for a biological species is any name that is commonly used for the species other than its scientific name, i.e., its binomial. (A binomial is a formal name, and it is the same the world over, independent of the language in use: a binomial is rendered italicised in Roman script, for example, Patella vulgata.) Common names however often do not correspond in any way to scientific names, especially if they are genuine everyday names.

Generally speaking, naturally-occurring common names only exist for those organisms that are reasonably commonly encountered, or are quite noticeable, whether dangerous or edible or useful in some other way. Common names almost always exist for organisms which are, or were, economically important to humans.

These genuine common names are written and spoken in whatever language is used in that particular part of the world. Unfortunately however, these everyday names are often not the same from one small region to another, even within one country. Sometimes there are several different common names for one species even within one region, and fairly often it happens that a species is known by one name when it is a juvenile, and another name when it is an adult.

However, despite all these disadvantages, there are some advantages to the use of common names. Many of our everyday English names for plants and animals like "rat", "squirrel", "rose" or "oak" refer to broad categories. By adding adjectival descriptors, such as the combinations "brown rat", "red squirrel", "dog rose" and "cork oak", common names for individual species have been created and continue to be created.

A common name which is quite useful in local context can be ambiguous if used more widely. Names like "sardine" or "deer" are applied to dozens of different species in English-speaking countries worldwide. Though these two names are perfectly adequate in their original domains of use: (fishing and hunting) in localities where only one such species is known to exist, or is likely to be caught.

Some common names such as "periwinkle" apply both to a mollusk and to a plant.

Official

For some groups, such as birds in the US, individual species do have official common names. Such official common names are chosen by a governing body and typically attempt to follow a set of guidelines set by that body. Such names have no standing in scientific nomenclature, but they are an attempt by scientists to communicate with non-scientists who might feel intimidated by scientific names, or by non-scientists trying to create more pleasant-sounding names.

It is debatable how far official common names are actually "common". Much depends on how the methods of composing the list. In the past there has been a fad to have all the species in a genus repeat the genus name, for example if Diospyros is regarded as the "ebony genus", to have all the species include "ebony" in the name. Such a method of creating names is highly artificial and is frowned upon. However, if an official list respects widely used layperson's names it may be beneficial.

Other attempts to standardise common names (insects in New Zealand; freshwater fishes in north America) have met with mixed success, but common names lose some of their unique merits when defined. Undefined use of Māori names for plants in New Zealand has usefully added stability to nomenclature in the face of scientific name changes.

In Australia, Common names for seafood species have been standardised as AS SSA 5300 Australian Fish Names Standard(AFNS) which contains Standard Fish Names for over 4000 species. Previously fish in Australia were sold under a large number of common names. The confusing variety of Australian common names resulted from: the numerous species Australia has on offer (over 4,000 species of finfish and many more crustaceans and molluscs); local and regional variations in the names being used; some species being known by more than one name; and the same name being used for more than one species.

The AFNS was compiled through an exhaustive process involving work by taxonomic and seafood industry experts (including CSIRO)[2] and including input through public and industry consultations by the Australian Fish Names Committe (AFNC). The AFNS has been an official Australian Standard since July 2007 and has existed in draft form (The Australian Fish Names List) since 2001. Seafood Services Australia (SSA) serve as the Secretariat for the AFNC. SSA is an accredited Standards Australia (Australia’s peak non-government standards development organisation) Standards Development Organisation [3]

A set of guidelines for the creation of English names for birds was published in The Auk in 1978.

Common names based on scientific names, and vice versa

In gardening, familiar names like Begonia, Dahlia, Gladiolus, and Rhododendron are common names that usually refer to plants in a genus of the same name (but note that Azalea refers to a genus now submerged in the genus Rhododendron). The use of genus names has been increasing in the vernacular of English-speaking gardeners in recent decades. Gardeners, naturalists and others, typically continue to use old common names when a scientific name changes. This is a useful feature whereby common names lend a measure of stability to nomenclature, and retain historical associations.

Especially with plants, common names (unitalicised) are often the same as their scientific names (italicised and the generic name capitalized). However, the reverse also happens, some pre-existing common names, typically from languages local to the plants, have been used to create the formal binomial. For this, the common names can be Latinized (and possibly anglicized), irrespective of their source language. For example Hoheria is from the New Zealand Māori "Houhere". A local name may also be adopted unaltered: the genus Tsuga is so named after the Japanese "tsugá".

For historical reasons, some common names and 'equivalent' scientific names refer to unrelated species. For example Cranesbill is the common name for the genus Geranium, while the common name Geranium refers to species of the South African genus Pelargonium. Again, the gardeners' 'Nasturtium' is Tropaeolum spec., whereas the European Watercress is in the genus Nasturtium.

Chemistry

In chemistry, official naming of chemical substances follows the IUPAC nomenclature, a convention on systematic names. In addition to its systematic name, a chemical may have one or more common or trivial names (and many widely occurring chemicals do indeed have a common name). Some common names allow a reader with some chemical knowledge to deduce the structure of the compound (e.g., acetic acid, a common name for ethanoic acid). Other common names, while uniquely identifying the compound, do not allow the reader to deduce the structure, unless he or she already knows it. Examples include cinnamaldehyde or morphine.

External Links

• The use of common names
• Chemical Names of Common Substances