Names

One of Adams delightful jobs in the garden of Eden was to name every living thing. Because of the marvels of natural adaptation within animal groups, we now have many more species of living things than Adam had to classify in the garden. Naming plants and animals has always presented human beings with an interesting challenge.

When European biologists first attempted to use already-existing Greek and Roman names for the new plants and animals that explorers had found around the world, total chaos broke out. For example, when seventeenth-century biologists were presented with the carnation, a newly discovered plant, they gave it the following official name: dianthus floribus solitariis, squamis calycinis subovatis brevissimis, corollis crenatis. In English that translates to “the pink with solitary flowers, the scales of the cowlicks somewhat egg-shaped and very short, the petals scalloped”!

Fortunately, by 1753 a Swedish naturalist named Carolus Linnaeus had developed a better way to name things. His system, still used today, gives us what we call “scientific names” for every species of life in the world. The scientific name always consists of two Latin names of one word each—a genus name and a species name. So the carnation described above became Dianthus caryophyllus. The genus name, in this case Dianthus, is capitalized. The species name caryophyllus, is not capitalized and can never be used for any other species in the genus Dianthus. Scientist might, however, use it as a name in another genus, for this would not create duplication in this new binomial (two-name) system. As long as scientists follow the rules that Linnaeus set down, no other species can have this name.

Using the system that Linnaeus developed means that we can use designated common English names, such as “northern cardinal,” or colorful local names, such as “redbird”, but to ornithologist, be they French, Russian, Chinese, or English, the bird is Cardinalis cardinalis.

How do you think Adam kept all the names straight? Do you think Adam used a binomial system?

A Word from Our Creator:

And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field.

Genesis 2:20.