I think the history of @AmOrnith's approach to the standardization of English common names of birds deserves a little attention so I'm going to tweet about bird names a little #birdnamesforbirds

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The practice of naming and categorizing organisms is one that is as ancient as language. Naming is fundamental to the field of natural history* which underlies all studies of ecology and evolution.

*this term arose from an antiquated usage of history meaning "description"
The American practice of giving birds standardized English and Latin names, which is a basic practice of natural history, is also a fundamentally colonial/settler practice because the birds already existed in a cultural context of settled, inhabited lands and indigenous cultures.
I love this bird. I call it a Horned Puffin (Fratercula corniculata), noting that puffin is an anglo-norman word for dried seabird carcasses. So the English name has WASPish roots. But the Aleut, whose culture and language are indigenous to the Aleutians, call it qagidan.
A first step towards rationally discussing standardized English names of American birds is to acknowledge that a) they have colonial origins and b) using these names as a scientific benchmark involves exclusion of indigenous culture from science. I hope you're with me so far.
Let's accept for now that English is the de facto "language of science" (a bold, somewhat ignorant colonial statement in and of itself) and that we need standardized English names because that's "how science communicates" and move on to the practice of naming birds after people.
A long-standing practice in natural history is naming organisms for people. People did/do it to honor friends, collectors, family, love interests, celebrities, benefactors. This is a seriously colonial practice when applied to organisms that already had indigenous names.
This practice can result in the absurd. For example, Oscar Scheibel named a Slovenian cave beetle Anophthalmus hitleri to honor Adolf Hitler in 1933, and the ICZN wouldn't change the name post-World War II. The species is avidly collected by Hitler fans. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anophthalmus_hitleri
On a lighter note, there's also Scaptia beyonceae, named for Beyoncé. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scaptia_beyonceae

But back to #birdnamesforbirds
When the fledgling @AmOrnith* embarked on creating a standardized checklist of English bird names in 1885 that was published in 1886, there was controversy. Some of it was about the same things we are talking about today! (?!)

*(then just AOU, before COS merger RIP 😱)
Ernest Thompson Seton, famous early ornithologist and pivotal in the BSA (!) wrote a letter in 1885, outraged that the AOU was attempting to standardize English common bird names.

(Seton changed his own name twice during his life, so seems appropriate to bring him up here)
Keeping in mind that Seton was an immigrant to Canada from England and so had a colonial mindset (although he is noted as an advocate for First Nations today) and that we're talking about English names, he makes this case:
Seton made a case that what matters is what people actually call the bird, and mentions popular revolts against standardized common names, many eponymous, in favor of colloquial names. I think I would've liked Seton, especially compared to David Starr Jordan.
When David Starr Jordan, the notable eugenicist and racist* wrote a piece in Auk in 1886 introducing "The A.O.U. Code of Nomenclature Checklist of North American Birds" he emphasized several issues facing taxonomists at the time.

*ok, he also founded Stanford, I guess
I call this kind of attitude "Alpha Male Taxonomy" and it shows the kind of attitude it took to get a bunch of amateur collectors and museum people (mostly what the AOU was then) to settle on a standardized set of names, when what they really wanted to do was NAME MORE STUFF!
Side note: incorrect spelling/grammar of scientific names was a big issue and it was so fucked (I mean, what "frontier naturalists" really knew Latin) that Coues and Jordan just gave up on trying to fix it and tons of the scientific names we have are just busted in this regard.
But in the end, Seton's view on standardized English names lost and the AOU instituted the practice, starting with the 1886, of attempting to standardize common names of birds. Ok. But lots of birds have common names that honor scoundrels, and many retain those today.
So let's talk about McCown's Longspur, named for a person that was a confederate war general (among other crimes against humanity). I'm in favor of renaming this bird, and getting rid of all eponymous bird names. The @AmOrnith NACC's rhetoric and behavior has been um interesting.
I think many of the AOS/NACC's conversations about this have been at too low a level. Here's the point: if ornithology wants to show even a glimmer of hope for the concept of decolonizing science, get rid of all eponymous names. They represent tremendously colonial attitudes.
We need to be able to get to where we can talk about what it means that natural history is a colonial discipline that appropriated indigenous people's landscapes and culture, excluded indigeneity via use of English, and robbed human remains for pseudoscientific racists.
How can we get *there* if over *here* we still insist on making native birds of this appropriated continent monuments to dead colonists, including people that played a role in these acts?
I'm serious enough about ditching eponymous names that I took a minute to ask my seabird colleague, David Ainley, for whom Ainley's Storm Petrel is named, what he thinks - David is one of the only people alive on the planet that has a eponymous common bird name. He's ok with it.
I know people say "BUT MUH TAXONOMIC STABILITY" or find some esoteric meaning in taxonomic naming guidelines in the 17000th edit of the AOU code, first written by Jordan and Coues et al. in 1886, that supports their viewpoint that naming birds after confederate generals is ok.
I say: If you want to pay more than lip service to decolonization and anti-racism, quit treating bird names how confederates treat their fucking statues.

I will also just repeat what Seton said before this mess of standardizing English names even started, back in 1886.

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