Conventions for common names?

[Barry Roth]

--- "Byron J. Adams" <bjadams at UFL.EDU> wrote:
> Hi folks -
>
> Are there any guidelines or "rules of thumb" for
> establishing common names
> for organisms that heretofore are known only by
> their scientific names?

I don't offer this as an argument either for or
against the coinage of common names, but the
introduction to the following work contains a set of
guidelines followed by the authors' committee in
generating English language names in a group where few
species had them:

Turgeon, D. D., J. F. Quinn Jr., A. E. Bogan, E. V.
Coan, F. G. Hochberg Jr., W. G. Lyons, P. M.
Mikkelsen, R. J. Neves, C. F. E. Roper, G. Rosenberg,
B. Roth, A. Scheltema, F. G. Thompson, M. Vecchione,
and J. D. Williams.  1998.  Common and Scientific
Names of Aquatic Invertebrates from the United States
and Canada:  Mollusks.  2nd edition.  American
Fisheries Society Special Publication 26: i-x, 1-526.

Barry Roth

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