Common name

For Wikipedia policies, procedure and conventions on common names see: Wikipedia:Naming conventions (common names), Wikipedia:Naming conventions, and Wikipedia:Style manual

Many of the conventions and traditions described in this article will depend on the scripts of the languages being used

A common name is a name that is in general use; it belongs to the community and is therefore free to be used by everyone within that community.
In scientific contexts common names are often contrasted with special-purpose formal Latin scientic names and are criticised for their lack of precision but they also have many qualities that scientific names lack. However, common names have general appeal because they are easy to remember and pronounce and have interesting cultural and historical associations. Although the meaning of the foundation noun of many common names has long been lost or forgotten (whelk, elm, lion, shark) others do assist our understanding of the organism by giving us clues about its use, appearance and other special properties(bindweed, stingray)and when the common name is extended to two or more words, this can be a powerful combination (giant stinking hogweed, hammerhead shark). There is little doubt that we have lost many of the hidden meanings and associations once conveyed through common names. Modern urban living has distanced us from nature and our rural ancestry so the romance of affections expressed through the symbolism of wild flowers has been replaced by the mass-produced bouquets of modern cultivars of hi-tec floristry. Although new names are constantly being added to the common name repertoire these mostly relate to food and economic function as older traditional names, in greater numbers, fall into disuse. Regardless of such changes there is no doubt that hat common names will always be with us.

Definition

In science, a common name is any commonly-used name for an entity, as opposed to its scientific name. In biology a common name may be applied to a single organism (e.g. man) or a collection of organisms (e.g. family). It is simply a way of facilitating communication about organisms and in this way is no different from any other common name.

Structure

Almost all cultures name objects using one or two words. When made up of two words (binomial) the name usually takes the form of a foundation name (like salt, dog or star) and a second word that helps describe the first and therefore make the name more "specific", for example, lap dog, sea salt, or film star. These names are noun-adjective binomials just like our own names where we usually have a foundation name like Simpson and another name that specifies which Simpson, say Homer Simpson. In this way many common names have the same structure as two-word scientific names of binomial nomenclature and it seems reasonable to assume that the form of scientific names is derived from this simple and practical way of constructing common names - but with the use of Latin as the universal language.

Derivation

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]

Use in biology

Not all organisms have common names; it is generally the most abundant, flamboyant, dangerous and useful have common names and, most of all, those used for trade.

Presentation (writing and printing)

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 various Articles, Rules and Recommendations in these Codes means that everyone is following the same conventions of scientific nomenclature and this assists stability by avoiding error and ambiguity during communication, especially across international boundaries. One well-known convention is the use of italicised Roman script for species names like Patella vulgata. For common names there are no such international Codes and no agreed ground-rules. There is therefore a range of naming conventions because books, periodicals, newspapers and other media develop their own policies for common names and the way they are to be written. The Wikipedia Style Manual states "Common (vernacular) names of flora and fauna should be written in lower case—for example, oak or lion" although allowance is made for a few exceptions. See head of this article for links to Wikipedia policy and procedure.

Precision

The single greatest advantage of scientific names is that they uniquely denote a particular classification category. For instance, each species can one, and only one, name within a particular classification system. In addition, scientific names in biology unambiguously denote a particular rank (level) within a classification system, so Homo sapiens has a rank of species, Homo a rank of genus, and Bellis perennis 'Aucubifolia' a rank of 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. Many scientifically different organisms can have the same common name; one particular species (or other classification category) will generally have a different common name in each language and sometimes many names in the same language. Sometimes a species is known by one name when it is a juvenile, and another name when it is an adult. Together these factors suggest common names are generally unreliable or even misleading but scientific names do not always impose stability; occasionally common names have proved more constant over time than their scientific counterparts. The use of Māori names for some plants in New Zealand has remained the same while their scientific names have undergone several changes. Some common names, like periwinkle, apply to both a mollusk and a plant, although this use of the same name for very different groups of organisms can also occur with scientific names – the genus Morus is the mulberry in botany and the gannet in zoology.

Geographic coverage

The geographic area of common usage for “commonly used” names varies from local to global which can be a problem in relation to familiarity, not to mention the changes in language. In English, the common name cat is used across the Western world while the name moggie, applied to the same genus, has only local use. 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.

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 cCat 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 .

Name and rank

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.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.

Lists of common names

Wikipedia

Wikepedia has many plant lists that can be searched by common name. A compendium can be found at portal:Contents/Lists of topics but here are some that have general interest:

Lists of special interest

• PLANTS
  • Plant by common name
  • Garden plants
  • Culinary herbs and spices
  • Poisonous plants
  • Plants in the bible
  • Invasive species
  • Culinary vegetables
  • Useful plants

• ANIMALS
  • Birds by region
  • Mammals by region

Collective nouns

See lists of collective nouns (e.g. a flock of sheep, forest of trees, hive of bees)

Multilingual, multiscript database

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 [1].

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” lists

For some groups, such as birds in the US, individual species do have official common names. Official lists like this are chosen by a governing body or organization and are usually selected following a set of guidelines. Such names generally have little standing in scientific nomenclature, but they serve a number of purposes:

• by allowing only one name for a particular organism (or classification category) a common name can capture the precision of a scientific name
• using one name simplifies the upkeep of modern computer databases
• it is seen as more user-friendly and pleasant-sounding than the Latin of scientific names

Various strategies may be used to make common names more accessible.

• where groups of organisms have members that do not have common names then these are sometimes “invented” where none previously existed
• the structure of scientific names is copied so that all the species in a genus repeat the genus name, so for example if Diospyros is regarded as the "ebony genus", the species are known as red ebony, giant ebony, creeping ebony and so on.

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.

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.

Use in 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