Some common name changes over the last 50 years or so

[David Suddjian]

Some folks mentioned a few ideas for new common names. I was thinking about which "new" common names have been given to ABA area birds in recent times. I say "new" because sometimes a change to a different common name is just a switch back to a name in use before a species was lumped and then re-split (e.g., Bullock's and Baltimore from Northern Oriole). I've attached a list of most of the species whose common names have changed in the ABA area since the 1970s. This is not intended to be exhaustive or scientific, or even accurate :-). I've left out some changes for rare tubenoses, and maybe rare geese that I am not clear on and did not research. And I omit the change of Blue-throated Hummingbird to Blue-throated Mountain-Gem. I'm sure I missed things, or have errors in my list.  Don't bother to tell me.

My curiosity was to consider the nature of the new names we have experienced in my birding history. Many of these are Colorado species. The "new" common names can be grouped as those that are descriptive in some way, those that associate the bird with a geographic area or location, and those that are after a person. Most of the descriptive names are not very imaginative or even distinctive, and none are in the spirit of Sunrise Phoebe. I do like names like Oak and Juniper for the titmice. Are there just two changes (Long-tailed Duck and McCown's Longspur) for reasons of sensitivity?

Descriptive

Cackling, Long-tailed, Red-necked, Short-billed, Red-naped, Red-breasted, Cordilleran, Dusky-capped, Greater, Alder, Willow, Blue-headed, Plumbeous,  Island, Oak, Juniper, Thick-billed, Dark-eyed, Sagebrush, Canyon, Spotted, Yellow-rumped

 Geographic area or location

Mexican, Gunnison, Gualalupe, Pacific (2x), Nazca, Pacific-slope, Canada, Florida, California (3x), Tamaulipas, Chihuahuan (2x), American, Cassia, Altamira, Baltimore, Northern, Westerm, Eastern

 Eponymous

Stejneger’s, Clark’s, Rivoli’s, Ridgeway’s, Wilson’s, Scripps’s, Thayer’s, Cassin’s, Woodhouse’s, Bicknell’s, Bell’s, Bullock’s

 

David Suddjian

Littleton, CO