Common name
A common name (also known as a vernacu-
lar name, colloquial name, trivial name, trivi-
al epithet, country name, or farmer’s name)
is a name in general use within a community;
it is often contrasted with a scientific name.
A common name is not necessarily a com-
monly used name.
Many of the conventions and traditions de-
scribed in this article are based on the Eng-
lish language, and thus may not apply to
common names in other languages.
Usage
The term "common name" is widely used in
relation to organisms, but also applies in oth-
er areas such as chemistry. When applied to
organisms a common name is often compared
and contrasted with its scientific name. A
common name may be applied, as a proper
noun, to both a single species of organism
(e.g. red admiral ) or in a more general sense
as a common noun (e.g. butterfly). This is es-
sentially the same way we communicate
about many other objects in everyday speech.
Common names have general appeal be-
cause they are easy to pronounce and re-
member; they can also convey cultural and
historical associations. It is common names,
not scientific names, that are the major cur-
rency of everyday communication about
organisms.
Some common names have persisted for
generations, handed on by word of mouth
within a particular community. But as the
proportion of people living in cities has in-
creased, and rural communities have become
less interested in natural history, it can be-
come progressively difficult to determine
how extensive the common usage of a name
really is.
Common names are also being created
and manipulated to fit our needs. Scientists
sometimes produce lists of "common names"
that are not based on common usage but
which attempt to correct confusion. For ex-
ample, the genus Callitris is generally known
as the "cypress pine", but it is neither a true
cypress (Cupressus) nor a pine (Pinus) and so
this common name might not be chosen to
appear in a scientific list of common names,
because it is misleading. With the increasing
use of computer databa