The other day I was perusing the internet, the way one does, and I stumbled on a Twitter flame war centred around a bird. Oh yes, the birding community is nothing if not a passionate bunch. This particular stoush was focused on a little North American bird known as McCown’s Longspur.

As you can see, it is a rather unremarkable looking bird. If I didn’t know any better, I’d probably think it was a run-of-the-mill Sparrow (indeed, they belong to the same Superfamily as the Sparrows – Passerida). To the trained eye, though, you will see they are more of slate grey with a black bib. And if you can get really close to their feet you will see their long spurs.

But that’s neither here nor there. What was the hubbub with McCown’s Longspur? Or rather, what was the hubbub with the Thick-billed Longspur? For you see, that was the problem. There was a petition in place to have its name changed.

This Sparrow-like bird has what is known in the ornithological biz as an honorific name. That is, it is named after a person. In this case, one John P. McCown (1815-1879). Back in the good old days of the 1850s, our friend Johnny P was manifesting destiny, pushing the boundaries of the fledgling United States further westward. While out on the prairie one day he shot an innocent looking bird he’d never seen before. So, he popped it in an envelope and mailed it back east to his friend, George Lawrence, who confirmed that it was new to science. For his troubles, McCown got his name forever affixed to this little bird.

Normally, that would be the end of the story. But about ten years later the United States needed a moment to work out if those states were going to stay united or not. That discussion turned into the Civil War. McCown, being a proud patriot, joined the Confederate Army and eventually served as a Major General.

By now you can probably guess where this is going. McCown has (had) the distinction of being the only Confederate officer to have a bird named after him. But, what with all the recent tension in the US around honouring Confederate figures, a concerted push was being made to get that perceived blemish off this bird. Predictably enough, there was some backlash, with people claiming it was yet another example of cancel culture and political correctness run amok.

Anyway that got me thinking. Just what is in a bird’s name? How are birds named and what do those names mean? First, you will be pleased to know that there is an official committee that takes care of these issues: the International Ornithologists’ Congress. They meet once every four years (kinda like the Olympics, only more bureaucratic) and they have the final say on what bird gets what name. Thank god a committee was created to take care of this, otherwise there would be literal chaos. People naming birds with wild abandon and flagrant disregard from common decency. They are the only thing standing between us and names like Birdie-McBirdface.

I know what you’re thinking. Do they have guidelines for naming birds? Do they ever! There are ten guidelines. I won’t go into them all (you can check them out here) but as an example of what they’ve got going on: names must be unique; each taxon must be known by one name and one name only; names should be as short as possible and only exceed four words (hyphenated or otherwise) in rare exceptions. Thrilling stuff I know. My favourite is that they don’t like using the word ‘island’ as part of a name, unless it helps to avoid confusion. One example of an exception is the Inaccessible Island Rail.

Anywho, I’ve done a bit of digging in my own files to try and find some patterns to bird nomenclature. And I’m pleased to report there is some logic to it. (Seems like the committee’s work is finally paying off.) For the most part, you can think of bird names as following a similar system to how our own names work. We have a family name and a first name. Nearly all birds are the same, they have two names: the first name is generally a descriptive word that describes an attribute the bird has, and their second name tells you what family they belong to. Let’s look at an example at random: the Crested Pigeon. From its name we should deduce that it belongs to the Pigeon family, and has a crest. And lo and behold, that is what we find. The system works.

Now, there are exceptions to every rule. Some birds only have one name, they’re the Chers of the bird world. And just like Cher, they’re rather rare. Even birds that you think only have one name usually have two. Names that might spring to mind (for us Australians) would be the Magpie or the Kookaburra. But officially, they are the Blue-winged or Laughing Kookaburra (that’s two different species), and the Australian Magpie. You’ll also note in the case of the Magpie we are given a geographical descriptor instead of a physical one.

But sometimes names can be misleading. Unfortunately, our Aussie Magpie doesn’t belong to the Magpie family. The Magpies that live in Europe and Asia are all Corvids, and our Magpie is a member of the family Artamidae (basically they’re just a big old Butcherbird). It has this misleading name because when Europeans first arrived in Australia they thought it looked similar to the Eurasian Magpie. The word ‘magpie’ does tell us something about its physical appearance though. To be ‘pied’ means that you’re a black and white animal, which the Australian Magpie most assuredly is. This name holds true for other birds like the Pied Butcherbird, the Pied Currawong and the Magpie-lark.

Wait a second, I was supposed to be talking about birds that only have one name. Sorry, I got distracted…

For the most part, birds that are only known by one name, tend to be known by their original indigenous name. In Australia, we have the Emu and Galah, both indigenous names. But the same is true for all sorts of birds. You’ve got the Kea and the Kakapo from New Zealand, the ‘I’iwi from Hawaii, or the Hoatzin from South America.

Of course, that doesn’t mean there aren’t birds that poo-poo the rules and you can wind up with some pretty kooky names. The Many-colored Rush Tyrant, for example, has one hell of a name. But to be fair, it does have many colours, it does live in rushes, and it is a member of the tyrant flycatcher family. Why are they called tyrants? We don’t have time to get into it, but trust me there is another really cool bird behind that story as well.

Meanwhile, the Bare-faced Go-away-bird has another great name, but again the same pattern holds. They don’t have any feathers on their face, and people are always telling them to go away. Actually, that part of their name is based on the call they make. It supposedly sounds like someone saying, ‘go away’.

Many birds have names that are onomatopoeic. The obvious family are the Cuckoos, but two of my favourites are the Killdeer and the Jacky Winter.

But then sometimes things can go awry. Take for instance, the Connecticut Warbler, which doesn’t live anywhere near Connecticut. It’s really more of a Canadian Warbler. Or the Olive Warbler, which has nothing to do with Olive (the colour or the plant) and isn’t even a Warbler, it’s actually a closer relative to the Finches. But then, the bird world is full of examples like this. Usually these issues pop up because of a misclassification at the time of discovery, and then the name just kinda sticks.

Now, before we go any further, I can’t say another word about bird names without addressing the family of birds that has by far the most delightful names. The Hummingbirds. I don’t know who decided that they all needed to have whimsical magical names, but almost all of them do and I love it so much. Let me give you a rundown of some of the best:

• Fiery Topaz
• Minute Hermit
• Sparkling Violetear
• Horned Sungem

• Purple-crowned Fairy
• Green Mango
• Amethyst-throated Sunangle
• Butterfly Coquette

• Long-tailed Sylph
• Bearded Mountaineer
• Glowing Puffleg
• Shining Sunbeam
• Little Woodstar
• Lucifer Sheartail
• Santa Marta Blossomcrown
• Violet-capped Woodnymph

The list literally goes on. There are over 300 officially recognised species of Hummingbird and they all have amazing names. I don’t have anything more interesting to say about them, except that they’re excellent and now you know too. You’re welcome.

Of course, some of the most entertaining names are filthy ones. Birds certainly aren’t above having smutty names, and if we hunt around a little we can find plenty of Tits, Boobs and Cocks. The Brown Booby probably tops the list of boobs. Of course, the name has nothing to do with mammaries. Rather, it is generally believed that the name comes from the Spanish word ‘bobo’ meaning someone who is a fool. A reference to how easy it was for sailors to catch and eat these unsuspecting birds. Even today, if you call someone a boob, it means they’re being stupid or foolish. Ditto for the Great Tit, and all the other members of the Tit family. Their name comes from the Scandinavian word for Sparrow, titlingur. Of course, in America they’re sometimes called Chickadees, which in my opinion even more hilarious.

But the fun doesn’t stop there. You’ve got other instant winners, like the Cock-of-the-Rock, the Dickcissels, the Yellow-bellied Sapsucker and everyone’s favourite, the Hairy Woodpecker.

But we have now gotten wayyy off track here. The point I really wanted to make was about honorific names and how they fit in with all the other silliness. I think we’ve covered off the silliness now, so let’s get back to business.

So, honorific names. Nearly all of them take the form “X’s bird-family”. For example, Bonaparte’s Gull, Lyall’s Wren, Abbott’s Booby, McCown’s Longspur. As always, there are exceptions, like the Victoria Crowned Pigeon, named after Queen Victoria, but lacking the possessive.

In recent years, there has been a growing tension in the birding world as to just how appropriate honorific names are. As you can imagine, nearly all of them are named for European men. For the most part, the bird in question was nearly always known by the local peoples before the colonising power arrived. Sometimes the bird is named after the person who found it, but sometimes they’re just named as a gesture of goodwill to some other guy. Take for example, Stresemann’s Bristlefront, named after German ornithologist Erwin Stresemann, not because he had anything to do with it, but because the guy who first described it liked Stresemann and thought he’s name should get hooked onto this bird. Sometimes, as is the case with many of the Birds-of-Paradise, they get named after a royal personage for no better reason than to suck up to the aristocracy. The King-of-Saxony Bird-of-Paradise is a case in point.

So, there’s a pretty strong argument that honorific names have had their day. They don’t describe the bird in any way, so they’re not helpful for identification. Sometimes they do hint to the bird’s history in natural science, but not always. And even when they do, often it’s hard to find out exactly who the person is that got their name affixed to the bird and why.

Then of course, there are birds like McCown’s Longspur, where the person being honoured is of dubious nature. Sadly, you don’t have to hunt for too long to find many other examples either. John Kirk Townsend, who has two birds named after him, Townsend’s Warbler and Townsend’s Solitaire, desecrated American Indian burial sites to collect their skulls. Major Charles Bendire, who served in the US Army and fought many battles against the American Indians, also has a Thrasher named after him. And then there’s Rosploi’s Turaco, a bird named after a dude who either robbed or murdered most of the indigenous peoples he ran into. Thankfully he was trampled to death by an elephant, so maybe there is still some justice left in the world.

Turaco’s are amazing too, by the way. They’re the only birds that have a green pigment in their feathers. But first … you know … we got to side step the awkward person it’s named after.

I guess we can just be thankful there aren’t any birds named after Hitler. And I mean, I joke, but there is a beetle called Anophthalmus hitleri which is currently under threat of extinction because Hitler enthusiasts keep trying to collect it. What a world we live in! But birds, we’re talking about birds here.

Historically, attempts to change names have been met with stiff resistance from the official committee. A previous push to have the Inca Dove’s name changed failed. The Dove has no association with the former Inca Empire and doesn’t live anywhere near where the Empire used to exist. The guy who named it was just straight up ignorant of the native people and figured, “well you’re all basically the same, near enough is good enough.” That’s a direct quote by the way, no need to double check it.

The problem with the committee is … how should I say this … it has conservative views. From their perspective, even though the name is inaccurate, it is in common usage, it is the name people are familiar with, so in favour of maintaining stability and consistency they rejected the name change request. They have previously stated that their body does not exist to pass moral judgement on names, and if you make one exception then where will the line of acceptability get drawn. It’s a slippery slope, guys.

Look, when all is said and done, the birds don’t care what we call them. Gould’s Toucanet will keep doing its thing, whether this South American bird has the name of some English dude attached to it or not.

The real question, though, comes down to what we value. When we continue to have these names associated with these birds, we perpetuate the practice of honouring colonising powers in foreign lands. And that’s as a bare minimum, never mind if the person on the bird was actual trash as well. These names do nothing to help people better identify or learn about the birds, while casting a shadow that legitimises a problematic past. There is of course a place to learn about the history of natural science, but I don’t think having the name of a person on a bird even achieves that. Hell, I write about birds all the time and mostly I don’t even bother looking up who the person is. I still can’t tell you who the Leach of Leach’s Storm Petrel is.

But maybe times are shifting. The American Ornithological Society accepted the petition to have McCown’s Longspur’s name changed. Following this decision, the International Ornithological Congress agreed to also update the name. Now it is known as the Thick-billed Longspur. The history of how this bird was discovered isn’t going anywhere, but now we’re free to appreciate it on its own merits and not those of some long dead racist dude.