So you guys are planning to turn this thread inyo another eponym battlefield?
My comment at least was completely unrelated to the eponymous nature of the name being dropped.
FWIW, dropping Oceanic Flycatcher in favour of "Chuuk Flycatcher" (
#2,852 above) did not involve an eponym, but I would regard it as a similarly poor move, for basically the same reason (the change is unnecessary; Google Books :
1 hit...). Not to mention that "Chuuk", in this last case, is arguably inviting confusion, as
Myiagra spp are or have been called "monarch" (or some variation on this word) in a lot of languages (German, Dutch, French, Spanish, Portuguese, all the Scandinavian languages, Slovak, Turkish... as well as, occasionally, English), and "Chuuk Monarch" is the established name of a wholly different species.
Laurent has a point regarding historical stability. But if Kenya uses one name and Britain uses another, I suppose we could call it a geographic instability. Its okay to have different opinions about which of those is the more important. But when we refuse to acknowledge the nuanced reality of the situation seems to be the precise time that these discussions devolve into the dug-in repetitive debates that so many here are dreading.
Temporal (I prefer this to
historical, with suggests very long delays) stability is important for diachronic communication (yesterday's workers passing info to tomorrow's workers); universality (your "geographic stability") matters in synchronic communication (today's Kenyans and Brits, talking together). I tend to regard departures from temporal stability as more problematic because, particularly if the issuer is not around any more, they can more easily result in a complete failure to detect an attempt of communication -- but this is my personal view, I guess. Both certainly have their importance, and it's a pity to have to sacrifice one to the other.