What’s in a name? New research catalogues how birds are categorized by what we call them

(Press-News.org) There are thousands of species of birds, and many of their names are well-known to us—blue jay, robin, and mallard, to name just a few. But we have little understanding of the holistic nature of avian nomenclature. Do birds’ names tend to stem from physical or biological traits, such as a black-and-white warbler, or, rather, from people—such as Bonaparte’s gull, which was named after Charles Lucien Bonaparte, an ornithologist and nephew of Napoleon Bonaparte?

A new study by New York University and the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County answers many of these questions. 

After compiling a database of nearly 11,000 birds’ names, the researchers found that a majority—nearly 90 percent—are named after biological or other characteristics and a very small percentage—11 percent—are named after people. 

The database, the AvianLexiconAtlas, comes nearly two years after the American Ornithological Society announced that it would rename all bird species currently honoring people. 

“Until the publication of this database, there was no quantitative way to analyze the current state of terms in English bird names,” explains Erin Morrison, a professor in Liberal Studies at NYU and the co-lead author of the paper, which appears in the journal PLOS One. “In addition to showing that a very small percentage of birds are named after people, the database reveals some of the terminology we use to name birds is very specialized—and it points towards an issue with how accessible these names are, such as the isabelline shrike and the diademed sandpiper-plover, even to native English speakers.”

“The work gives us a rich insight into how birds are named overall,” adds Allison Shultz, co-lead author and curator of ornithology at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County. “Those naming processes can reflect all the strangeness and specificity of the people naming them, their culture, and their history—things that wouldn’t help tell you what a bird looks like.”

Some of the stranger bird names include the barnacle goose, whose name comes from an erroneous medieval notion that these geese hatched from barnacles each autumn, and the Pincoya storm-petrel—a moniker based on mythical Chilean sea nymph who represents the fertility of the seas, aids shipwrecked mariners, and dances on the waves to indicate good or bad fishing. 

Common names are often the way the general public interacts and communicates about species in nature—for instance, brown bears or the California sea lion. These names should therefore provide an accessible way for people to engage with and identify species—though this isn’t always the case when it comes to birds.

“In ornithology, there has been significant reflection among both professional researchers and amateur naturalists about what the terminology in regionally standardized English-language common names should communicate about species of birds,” explains Morrison. 

Some names directly describe characteristics of a species (e.g., yellow-rumped warbler), while other names are ambiguous (e.g., barnacle goose), are unrelated to the species’ biology (e.g., Wilson’s warbler), or have no obvious significance (e.g., the common grackle).

The researchers believe that the AvianLexiconAtlas, a Github site that encompasses nearly all known bird species, can serve as a systematic resource to assess the types of terminology used in the English-language common names of birds. 

“Our hope is that this database, which includes the categorical dataset as well as a glossary and gazetteer of terms in English-language bird names, can be used by other researchers and amateur naturalists to study the utility of the terms, linguistic patterns, and their biological relevance—among other educational uses,” says Morrison.

The AvianLexiconAtlas database provides a quantitative dataset that assigns the unique descriptor of each species's common name to one of 10 distinct categories associated with aspects of avian physical traits, avian natural history, or human culture. These include the black-capped chickadee (a physical trait shared by both sexes), the European starling (geographic location), and the rock pigeon, which nests on cliffs (natural history).

The project started with Morrison and Shultz wondering how many species were named after birds’ feathers, or plumage, found only in males—such as a scarlet tanager.

“We found that about 1,000 of the 11,000 species were named after male-only plumage, but just 20 were named after female-only plumage—with the orange-bellied antwren being one of the few,” notes Shultz. 

The compiling of the atlas began in Morrison’s Life Science class at NYU in the fall of 2022. In a course assignment, the students identified whether a bird species is named after a person, a non-English language term (e.g., baglafecht weaver), a geographic location, a physical trait, physical size (e.g., small blue kingfisher), a natural history trait (e.g., mangrove finch), or a behavioral trait (e.g., mute swan). Some of the course’s students, along with NYU Liberal Studies professors Kevin Bonney, Ida Chavoshan, Jared Simard, and Talia Mota, are among the paper’s co-authors. 

“In the future, we look forward to combining what we learned with rich sources of data like our bird collections to understand the connections between birds and people better,” says Shultz. “Overall, this work provides valuable insights in helping develop approachable names that help strengthen this connection and ultimately help protect birds and nature.” 

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