Bewick鈥檚 Wren. Forster鈥檚 Tern. Gambel鈥檚 Quail. Henslow鈥檚 Sparrow. Say鈥檚 Phoebe. Wilson鈥檚 Phalarope. What do these birds have in common? They鈥檙e all named for people鈥攆or now.
As we explore in a feature story in our Summer issue, there鈥檚 growing support in the birding community from hobbyists to professional ornithologists alike to rename these six species and the roughly 145 other birds that bear honorifics. One argument for renaming is that honorific names don't provide any information about the birds themselves or their natural history, and so they are not helpful for identification. There are also ethical and inclusivity issues: Many birds carry the names of long-dead men, some of whom were not even ornithologists and others who were enslavers, supremacists, or grave robbers.
Today the English Bird Names Committee of the American Ornithological Society (AOS), which officially determines the used by millions of birders and scientists across North and Central America, is in the process of crafting guidelines for defining harmful names. The committee will also determine priorities for settling on new monikers; considerations may include bestowing descriptive names that highlight unique avian attributes, restoring lost names, or referencing Latin names.
While AOS is just getting started, we thought it鈥檇 be fun and informative to invite our readers to dream up new names for the six species listed above. We鈥檝e provided some info about each of the birds, pulled in part from our field guide, and we offer these naming guidelines:
-
Take inspiration from the bird鈥檚 behavior, song, physical traits (though avoid male-only traits), habitat, scientific name, or cultural importance.
-
Check to make sure there isn鈥檛 a bird elsewhere in the world that already has the name you鈥檙e proposing.
-
We urge you not to use 鈥渃ommon鈥 to describe the bird (e.g., no 鈥淐ommon Sparrow鈥) or geographic reference (鈥淚ndiana Sparrow鈥).