The worst English common names for fish

[GaryE]

Everyone makes mistakes, but sometimes they last well beyond a human lifetime.

In the 1940s, importers of Corydoras catfish were sure they'd caught julii. My childhood fishbook, already yellowed and old, said there were four Corydoras species, in the entire Amazon. How little they knew back then. When importers realized they had never seen julii, a super rare fish until recently, they either continued selling all the spotted Cory species as julii, or invented the trade name "false julii" to cover their mistake. Probably, 99.whatever of the spotted Corys out there in the hobby aren't julii, but the real julii are true to themselves.

And we have false juliis, which is like saying the plains of Africa are full of striped false horses.

And around the same time, a beautiful dwarf Cichlid was found in Nigeria. Before that, a smaller, more colourful fish had been discovered farther south near the town of Kribi, in Cameroon. It was named a kribensis. The Nigerian fish was wrongly thought to be the same, and the hobby kribensis was created. Its name, btw, should be pulcher. So we have two kribensis in the hobby, the famous one (the false krib?) and the real one, a lovely fish no one buys because they think the false krib is real. Aaargh, since the real kribensis (which people called a taeniatus) may be my favourite Cichlid.

Have you encountered any other fish names that muddy the waters more than clearing them for us?

 

[Ichthys]

Saw a confusing one here yesterday... Glowlight Rasbora. I know that fish as Trigonopoma pauciperforatum, the rasbora that looks like a Glowlight Tetra, but now they’re also calling Trigonostigma hengeli, which looks nothing like the Glowlight Tetra, the Glowlight Rasbora.

Anyway, back to the thread.

“German Blue Ram”. This variety probably does not exist anymore. I haven’t seen even a picture of one in 20 years.
The German Blue Ram was developed in Germany in the late 90s. They were trying, believe it or not, to make the Blue Ram as black as possible. It had a very large shoulder spot which was black at all times and never faded even when stressed. It also had a large similarly black spot directly above it in the dorsal fin. On “good” specimens they were joined together.
Round about the same time, the Singapore farms were having big health problems with their Rams that they couldn’t cure without lacing them with antibiotics. Even that just delayed the inevitable until the fish were out of their hands. Sales were dropping, and the German rams were becoming more and more popular because they were healthy.
So what did Singapore do? They decided to call their rams “German Blue Rams” to increase sales again... and it worked. The world fell for it hook, line and sinker. Now all Blue Rams are called German, but the strain was discontinued, partly because the German breeders couldn’t get any more black into them, and partly because sales plummeted when the world fell for the Singapore farms’ deception.

 

[BigJfish12]

Saw a confusing one here yesterday... Glowlight Rasbora. I know that fish as Trigonopoma pauciperforatum, the rasbora that looks like a Glowlight Tetra, but now they’re also calling Trigonostigma hengeli, which looks nothing like the Glowlight Tetra, the Glowlight Rasbora.

Anyway, back to the thread.

“German Blue Ram”. This variety probably does not exist anymore. I haven’t seen even a picture of one in 20 years.
The German Blue Ram was developed in Germany in the late 90s. They were trying, believe it or not, to make the Blue Ram as black as possible. It had a very large shoulder spot which was black at all times and never faded even when stressed. It also had a large similarly black spot directly above it in the dorsal fin. On “good” specimens they were joined together.
Round about the same time, the Singapore farms were having big health problems with their Rams that they couldn’t cure without lacing them with antibiotics. Even that just delayed the inevitable until the fish were out of their hands. Sales were dropping, and the German rams were becoming more and more popular because they were healthy.
So what did Singapore do? They decided to call their rams “German Blue Rams” to increase sales again... and it worked. The world fell for it hook, line and sinker. Now all Blue Rams are called German, but the strain was discontinued, partly because the German breeders couldn’t get any more black into them, and partly because sales plummeted when the world fell for the Singapore farms’ deception.

Do you have any pictures of the German blue rams you are referring to?

 

[Ichthys]

Do you have any pictures of the German blue rams you are referring to?

I’ve looked in the past (and just now) but can’t find any. They were very common for a while so a lot of those Rams with XL black spots, or double black spots, and a lot of black in the dorsal, are probably descendants of them.

 

[WhistlingBadger]

Glowlight danios. Another marketing name, I'm sure. (how many really stupid common names come from the marketing people?) I have a large school of these, and they are beautiful fish, with complex markings that reward a closer look. But they don't glow. Not even a little. I refuse to use this common name, because it's silly. I call them choprae danios instead.

 

[emeraldking]

There are so many incorrect names in the ornamental fish industry. Even a lot of wholesalers are to be blamed for it. And there are breeders who like to name fish differently than their original names. This is also why a lot of misunderstandings have been the results of the mislabeling. And a lot of retailers just copy the name they've got from the wholesaler/provider. Those are the "socalled specialists" who don't check the labeling and sell them with the wrong name.

 

[Ichthys]

I refuse to use this common name, because it's silly.

Sounds like me.

 

[davros]

 

[Ichthys]

Pleco.

No offence intended, but in the UK we always called them plecs. So why take a perfectly good abbreviation and then add another syllable to it. Seems silly to my inherent succinctness.

 

[WhistlingBadger]

Odessa barbs. They come from the Chindwin drainage in Myanmar, not Ukraine. Odessa was where they were first sold, so the name stuck. Dumb. Could we all agree to call them padamya barbs? Or chindwin barbs? Or orange and silver barbs? Something???

 

[GaryE]

Red tailed sharks. Wait, sharks with barbels? They aren't &*&^% sharks. Nope, not even close. They are nasty serial killers with moustaches.

Plecos. They are Loracarids. We could shorten it to Loracs, which would become Lorax, and we could claim Dr Seuss had written a fishbook. But do we seize the opportunity? No.

 

[Ichthys]

Labeos... sharks because they have a triangular dorsal fin? Pretty sure I can find another few thousand fish with a triangular dorsal fin.

Odessa Barbs... similar silliness to ‘German’ Blue Rams. Chinese Algae Eaters... they are found in China but historically they haven’t come from there. They were Sucking Loaches (they’re not loaches either) till China was opened up to fish collecting.

Plecs and Plecos... almost a whole family of fish named after the species name of one of them. Imagine if all Corys were called Pals (after paleatus). False julii Pals, anyone?

False Julii... grrrr. (they thought they were all False Trilineatus, lol).

There are hundreds of them, at least. What silly folk fish people are...

I was useless at Latin at school but since the age of 10 I’ve been able to remember the Latin name (and spelling) of every tropical freshwater fish I’ve seen after seeing the name written down once. But only the tropical freshwater ones. That’s passion at work. I would happily use only Latin names and never use a common name. Sadly the rest of the world doesn’t agree.

 

[simonas]

Goonch .. cant think of a worse name than that

 

[Ichthys]

Goonch .. cant think of a worse name than that

That’s a local name. Every fish (most of them) has local names. We’ve adopted a handful of them. There’s no consistency in naming fish. That’s half the issue.

 

[WhistlingBadger]

When I see a goonch...well, they sort of look like they'd be called goonch.

Edit: I wish I knew the local names for choprae danios and odessa barbs. I bet I'd like them better than what we have now.