Renaming all North American Birds (1 Viewer)

This is by far the dumbest thing I have seen in birding ever. Seriously, is there nothing conservation related you can spend your time on? Outreach to under-represented groups? NACC proposals to update NA taxonomy?

https://www.10000birds.com/rename-all-birds-named-after-white-people.htm

https://www.wildlifeobservernetwork...3o_EBMLWMMjMYaYosQ-pR6QQF3WULzNtpiuDyk7E1RfcY

Also your proposal to change common names would perhaps be taken a bit seriously if you didn't include numerous spelling and related errors...

Hmmm...
Next: renaming the American continent, as America was named after Amerigo Vespucci (aka Americo Vespucio): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amerigo_Vespucci

Who are these people?

They don't propose renaming all american birds, just those named after white people. Do you seriously need to make clickbait titles even on birdforum?

Personally I have noticed this weird tendency to have bird names in English after people and not the birds themselves a long time ago and consider it absurd. Does everything need to be a little memorial to someone? In Czech, there are a few similar outliers, but most birds are named after some feature of theirs, which is muchore logical. Moreover, that's also more likely to be stable in time.

I am not personally bothered by the fact that the names come from "white people", but having a bird named after a confederate general is outrageous and that really needs to be changed. We have also removed all references to Stalin from all our naming systems .

opisska said:

They don't propose renaming all american birds, just those named after white people. Do you seriously need to make clickbait titles even on birdforum?

Personally I have noticed this weird tendency to have bird names in English after people and not the birds themselves a long time ago and consider it absurd. Does everything need to be a little memorial to someone? In Czech, there are a few similar outliers, but most birds are named after some feature of theirs, which is muchore logical. Moreover, that's also more likely to be stable in time.

I am not personally bothered by the fact that the names come from "white people", but having a bird named after a confederate general is outrageous and that really needs to be changed. We have also removed all references to Stalin from all our naming systems .

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Here's the list, a subsequent commentator doesn't like 'Pygmy' either.


Ross’s Goose to Pygmy Snow Goose

Ring-Necked Duck to Ring-Billed Duck

Steller’s Eider to Siberian Eider (Duck)

Barrow’s Goldeneye to Mountain Goldeneye

Gambel’s Quail to Sonoran Quail

Clark’s Grebe to Yellow-Billed Grebe

Cory’s Shearwater to European Shearwater

Buller’s Shearwater to New Zealand Shearwater

Audubon’s Shearwater to Caribbean (Tropical Atlantic) Shearwater

Wilson’s Storm-Petrel to Ubiquitous Storm-Petrel

Leach’s Storm-Petrel to North Ocean Storm-Petrel

Brandt’s Cormorant to Pacific Cormorant

Pelagic Cormorant to Littoral Cormorant

Cooper’s Hawk to Aggressive Hawk

Harris’s Hawk to Pack-Hunting Hawk

Swainson’s Hawk to Grasshopper Hawk

Ferruginous Hawk to Iron Hawk

Ridgeway’s Rail to Western Rail

Wilson’s Plover to Thick-Billed Plover

Whimbrel to Whimbrel Curlew

Hudsonian Godwit to Muskeg Godwit

Baird’s Sandpiper to Long-Winged Sandpiper

Kittlitz’s Murrelet to Glacier Murrelet

Scripps’s Murrelet to Gray-Black Murrelet

Craveri’s Murrelet to Baja Murrelet

Cassin’s Auklet to Blue-Steel Auklet

Bonaparte’s Gull to Boreal or Tree-Nesting Gull

Sabine’s Gull to Xema (Tundra) Gull

Ross’s Gull to Pink-Hued Gull

Franklin’s Gull to Pothole Gull

Heermaan’s Gull to Mexican Gull

Forster’s Tern to Marsh Tern

Vaux’s Swift to Small-Billed Swift

Rivoli’s Hummingbird to Majestic Hummingbird

Anna’s Hummingbird to Chaparral Hummingbird

Costa’s Hummingbird to Desert Hummingbird

Allen’s Hummingbird to Pacific Hummingbird

Lewis’s Woodpecker to Great Basin Woodpecker

Red-bellied Woodpecker to Eastern Red-Capped Woodpecker

Williamson’s Sapsucker to Ponderosa Sapsucker

Nuttall’s Woodpecker to California Woodpecker

Sprague’s Pipit to Shortgrass Pipit

Couch’s Kingbird to Gulf Kingbird

Cassin’s Kingbird to Mountain Kingbird

Peewees renamed Contopus

Olive-Sided Flycatcher to Olive-Sided Contopus

Say’s Pheobe to Peach-Bellied Contopus

Hammond’s Flycatcher to Canopy Flycatcher

Scissor-Tailed Flycatcher to Scissor-Tailed Kingbird

Fork-Tailed Flycatcher to Fork-Tailed Kingbird

Cassin’s Vireo to Olive-Sided Vireo

Hutton’s Vireo to Kinglet Vireo

Steller’s Jay to Black Crested Jay

Woodhouse’s Scrub Jay to Interior Scrub Jay

Clark’s Nutcracker to Alpine Nutcracker

Bewicks Wren to Shrub Wren

Townsend’s Solitaire to Rocky Mountain Solitaire

Bicknell’s Thrush to Atlantic Nightingale-Thrush

Swainson’s Thrush to Boreal Nightingale-Thrush

Bendire’s Thrasher to Straight-Billed Thrasher

LeConte’s Thrasher to Mohave Thrasher

Smith’s Longspur to Tree-line Longspur

McCown’s Longspur to Dakota Longspur

McKay’s Bunting to Island Snow Bunting

Louisiana Waterthrush to Stream Waterthrush

Northern Waterthrush to Fen Waterthrush

Prothonotary Warbler to Golden Swamp Warbler

Swainson’s Warbler to Pocosin Warbler

Tennessee Warbler to Spruce Warbler

Lucy’s Warbler to Sonoran Warbler

Nashville Warbler to Blue-Gray Headed Warbler

Virginia’s Warbler to Great Basin Warbler

Connecticut Warbler to Eye-Ringed Warbler

MacGillvray’s Warbler to Brush Warbler

Kentucky Warbler to Understory Warbler

Kirtland’s Warbler to Jack Pine Warbler

Cape May Warbler to Tiger Warbler

Blackburnian Warbler to Flame-Faced Warbler

Palm Warbler to Wagging Warbler

Prairie Warbler to Scrub Warbler

Grace’s Warbler to Mountain Pine Warbler

Townsend’s Warbler to Fir Warbler

Canada Warbler to Shady-Woods Warbler

Wilson’s Warbler to Black-Capped Warbler

Morelet’s Seedeater to Northern White-Collared Seedeater

Botteri’s Sparrow to Semi-Desert Warbler

Cassin’s Sparrow to Southern Plains Warbler

Backman’s Sparrow to Palmetto Sparrow

Baird’s Sparrow to Northern Plains Sparrow

Henslow’s Sparrow to Tall-Grass Sparrow

LeConte’s Sparrow to Wet-Grass Sparrow

Nelson’s Sparrow to Disjunct Sparrow

Brewer’s Sparrow to Great Basin Sparrow

Harris Sparrow to Taiga Sparrow

Bell’s Sparrow to Chaparral Sparrow

Lincoln’s Sparrow to Willow Sparrow

Abert’s Towhee to Sonoran Towhee

Tanagers to Piranga

Hepatic Piranga

Summer Piranga

Scarlet Piranga

Western Piranga

Scott’s Oriole to Yucca Oriole

Brewer’s Blackbird to Pasture Blackbird

Cassin’s Finch to Inter-Mountain Finch

Lawrence’s Goldfinch to California Goldfinch

Dangerous and senseless to censor history. For explorers and those whose findings can never be truly theirs, it's been almost the sole acknowledgement of discovery to plant your name on what you've found.

Named places and things are no different than the signature at the bottom of a card, and the fact that something is named is simply proof that the information was gifted to the world.

Brave new world we live in...

@andy: still not nearly all birds Some of the non-white-people proposals are actually things that were bugging me for years and make perfect sense, such as Ring-necked Duck. And Tanagers really need to be completely redone, too many things are called "Tanager", even from different families!

Cory's to European Shearwater is a bit silly though, that's too "america-centric" name.

opisska said:

@andy: still not nearly all birds Some of the non-white-people proposals are actually things that were bugging me for years and make perfect sense, such as Ring-necked Duck. And Tanagers really need to be completely redone, too many things are called "Tanager", even from different families!

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But the same is true of warbler, sparrow, finch, flycatcher, hawk, bunting, etc.

I mean if you're going to rename all North American 'tanagers' to Piranga, then what's the point of having Scarlet Piranga, Summer Piranga, Western Piranga, etc. Why not just go all the way and call them Piranga olivacea, P. rubra, P. ludoviciana, etc?

There's no such thing as a perfect bird name, as long as we all know what the names Scarlet Tanager or Song Sparrow or Ring-necked Duck refer to, then what's the problem? I do think Palmetto Sparrow and Dakota Longspur are wonderful names, though 8-P

cajanuma said:

But the same is true of warbler, sparrow, finch, flycatcher, hawk, bunting, etc.

I mean if you're going to rename all North American 'tanagers' to Piranga, then what's the point of having Scarlet Piranga, Summer Piranga, Western Piranga, etc. Why not just go all the way and call them Piranga olivacea, P. rubra, P. ludoviciana, etc?

There's no such thing as a perfect bird name, as long as we all know what the names Scarlet Tanager or Song Sparrow or Ring-necked Duck refer to, then what's the problem? I do think Palmetto Sparrow and Dakota Longspur are wonderful names, though 8-P

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Wouldn't it be actually nice, if also the things you listed were put in order? Especially the "sparrow" title should be really removed from American "sparrows" (which are all buntings) - I think the old world ones, known thousands of years earlier, should take precedence here.

For me the main problem here is that the English nomenclature is typically two words with one being more general and the other one describing a sub-type and that makes it look like genus and species, which it monumentally isn't though. I mean in Czech, we still suffer from the fact that the taxonomy shifted a lot in the 150 years since the Czech binomial names were standartised, but we at least started with genus-species names.

The whole bird name thing has been done a few times on here already ... The latin binomial is there for accuracy ...

I agree some of those proposed new names do look quite fun (not that we have to change them). Also a handful of specific examples (eg the quoted McCown's Longspur) could be renamed for reasons given.

I looked up Montezuma. During the Flower Wars tried to get as many people for human sacrifice as he could (wikipedia).

Not all, but this would be a significant destabilization of current common names. If it was just 5 or so I wouldn't have titled this that way. Also presumably this list is rather incomplete. After all, if Hudsonian is problem, so is American for the same reasons, since both ultimately derive there names from European explorers

There have been a few suggested names over the years I have been fine with...someone over in the taxonomy forum suggested renaming all the new world vultures to condor, so you would have Turkey Condor, Black Condor, King Condor, etc besides the current California and Andean. I rather like that. And Painted Whitestart is a lot better name than Painted Redstart. But most of these are just as bland or uninformative as a the original.

We had a big attempted re-naming of English bird names here in the UK a few years ago, including trying to impose some Americanisms (“Winter Wren” for our sole Wren species, anyone). Hardly any are used. In many cases “Common”, “Northern”, “European” or “Eurasian” was simply tacked onto the common name - I still can’t remember which of those was applied to our (the real) Robin, but I always preferred Not BB’s “Northern Orange-breasted Robin-chat”.

Anyway, no reason why you Yanks shouldn’t suffer in your turn

My immediate response is that no two word name should ever be replaced by a three word name ....

Dave Ball said:

We had a big attempted re-naming of English bird names here in the UK a few years ago, including trying to impose some Americanisms (“Winter Wren” for our sole Wren species, anyone). Hardly any are used. In many cases “Common”, “Northern”, “European” or “Eurasian” was simply tacked onto the common name - I still can’t remember which of those was applied to our (the real) Robin, but I always preferred Not BB’s “Northern Orange-breasted Robin-chat”.

Anyway, no reason why you Yanks shouldn’t suffer in your turn

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Keep in mind that some of these Americanisms are a necessity here. When you are birding in the UK, and someone says they saw a Wren, you know exactly what they are talking about. If I said that to a local birder...well, do you mean Sedge, Marsh, House, Carolina, or Winter?

John Cantelo said:

My immediate response is that no two word name should ever be replaced by a three word name ....

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Except Pallas's Gull. Which was and always should have remained an appropriate four-word name: Great Black-headed Gull.

(It's tempting to use every single one of the emojis available on my right to accompany the above statement of fact, but I shall resist that temptation and leave each to their own...)

Is this just people with nothing better to do in Lock-down? Or as a result of the Black-lives-matter campaign - which I wholeheartedly support. But this is just change for changes sake. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

The only one I ever liked from the 'change' over here is Rosy Starling.

It is again an example that taxonomy is not science. Bird names and genera are artificial creations, which prompts surprisingly many people to changing them at a whim.

andyadcock said:

a subsequent commentator doesn't like 'Pygmy' either.

Ross’s Goose to Pygmy Snow Goose

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In my experience this is the best approach: beat them at their own game. Accuse people who are politically correct of being not politically correct enough. They never can be 100% politically correct and sound sane and intelligible, leaving a room for attack.

I only support formally recognizing Caspian Tern as a Carrot (Tern), because it is in everyday use in many languages.

Jon Turner said:

Is this just people with nothing better to do in Lock-down? Or as a result of the Black-lives-matter campaign - which I wholeheartedly support. But this is just change for changes sake. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

The only one I ever liked from the 'change' over here is Rosy Starling.

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This is definitely an influencing factor, without any doubt at all, let the science do the naming, not politics and not public opinion.

Without wishing to be offensive, what these latecomers to birding are doing, is akin to a Brit, arriving in America and changing all the rules to Ice Hockey. Birding has already become politicised recently, I hope it's a trend that dies, very quickly.

opisska said:

@andy: still not nearly all birds Some of the non-white-people proposals are actually things that were bugging me for years and make perfect sense, such as Ring-necked Duck. And Tanagers really need to be completely redone, too many things are called "Tanager", even from different families!

Cory's to European Shearwater is a bit silly though, that's too "america-centric" name.

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Think you'd better aim that at someone else, it wasn't my term.