Forming scientific names for speculative creatures

Almost all species in The Book have names. Some that only function as background material in the paintings remain nameless, but some other of such extras did receive a name, because I like naming them: it add a layer to their fictional existence. 

As my native language is Dutch, you might think that all species start with Dutch names, but that is not the case. I use both Dutch and English professionally and know better than to translate my own texts. You get a much better result if you write a text from scratch in the intended language, because otherwise the other language always gets in the way. The names of Furahan creatures are usually either inspired by existing names or by sound associations. For instance, an animal called a 'siphizilly' evokes a different feeling than a 'grackror'. 

The people populating the Institute of Furahan Biology were supposed to be linguistically diverse and would use words from various languages. For instance, there is a clade of tetrapters with large and colourful wings called the 'Farfalloidea'. Italian speakers will immediately recognise the Italian word for butterfly: 'farfalla'. 

Named creatures also receive a formal scientific name. That is the binomen, with a genus part, starting with a capital letter and a species part, starting with a lowercase letter. The official rules even recommend that you should never begin a sentence with a species name, because that will force a capital letter on the species name (recommendation 28A). Not that I really understand why that amounts to a capital offence (sorry for that one), but never mind. 

For those who like to name animals for themselves but do not like to wade through the entire zoological as well as botanic nomenclature codes (the rules are not exactly the same), I will provide a few simple rules here, focusing on zoological names. 

Choose a noun for the genus name, such as 'Bestia', meaning 'animal' or 'beast'. Use the singular form, not the plural, and make a note of the gender of the word. 'Bestia' is a feminine word. Existing Latin and Greek words always have a gender that you can look up easily in a dictionary; the gender will be masculine, feminine or neuter. If you make up your own word, you must choose a gender. An easy way to do so is to Latinise the word by choosing from three endings that evoke the gender: '-us' evokes a masculine ending, '-a' feminine one, and '-um' a neuter one. It is not compulsory to add such an ending though. Mind you, the Code insists that you specify a gender in all cases. If you choose an adjective for the species name you will have to use the form of the adjective of the appropriate gender. 

Then, choose a species name. You have basically three choices. 

• You can use a noun again; for example 'Bestia bestia' or 'Bestia calo' ('Calo' is a masculine word denoting a 'type of awkwardness'). The gender of the second noun does not have to be the same as that of the genus noun. Some people string some nouns together to form a name, such as 'Bestiacalo'; in such strings the gender of the last noun wins, so the word 'Bestiacalo' is regarded masculine. 
• You can use an adjective; it must match the gender of the noun. Say you wish to use the Latin word for 'pretty'; the dictionary will provide the masculine form, 'pulcher', and the feminine form of 'pulchra'. If you change the '-a' to '-um' you get the neutral form. Using the 'bestia' example again, you could form 'Bestia pulchra' (feminine), or 'Bestiacalo pulcher' (masculine). 
• You can also use a genitive of a noun, often done to name a species after someone. If you wish to honour someone called 'Rodger', you ought to turn that name into a Latin form first. For men you add '-us' or '-ius', resulting in the genitive endings '-i' or 'ii'.  The genitive thus becomes 'rodgeri' or 'rodgerii' for men. For women, say 'Violet', you also first turn the name into a Latin version by adding '-a' with the genitive '-ae'. So you get 'violeta 'or 'violetta'. To make life simple, '-i' works for neuter genitives too. 

I use freely available Lexilogos dictionaries for Latin and classical Greek and rummage around, taking notes, until I find a combination of words I like. I am old-fashioned so I do not mix Latin and Greek. Using Greek is more complex than Latin, because you have to be able to read the alphabet of classical Greek and how to transliterate Greek words to Latin ones. Mind you, there are interesting words there, such as the following I found for 'beast': 'thremma', 'therion', and 'knodalon'. 

That's basically it! For me, the fun part is finding names with an appropriate meaning as well as a nice sound and cadence. Here are some examples of animal names that did not all make it all the way to The Book. Syllables in bold tape carry pronunciation stress, although this has always been a weak spot for me so I cannot guarantee accuracy. 

Click to enlarge; copyright Gert van Dijk.

• Tonitrus onerosus; a very large hexapod. The name means 'weighty thunder'. This anem was used for the large animals on a now no longer useful painting showing the 'Tonitrus onerosus', with the common name of 'Gromachin' (in this instance French provided the inspriration) 
  
• Ira tarda: 'slow anger' 
• Ferpilum perfidum; 'Ferre' is the verb 'to carry'; a 'pilum' is a javelin, so ferpilum means 'javelin carrier'. 'Perfide' is French for treacherous. 
• Brutum rutrum ; brutum: dull, stupid, insensible, unreasonable. A rutrum is a shovel. 

Pronunciation is tricky. Many people just apply the spelling rules of their native language to scientific names, but the result may well be unintelligible to others, and the whole point of scientific names is that people over the entire world can use them. English is particularly bothersome in this respect, probably because of the 'Great Vowel Shift'. Sounds of English vowels do not correspond to those of other European languages. If you pronounce the word 'ira' (anger) as 'eye-rah', people for whom the letter 'i' always means an short or long 'ee' sound, may not understand you. I personally stick to the pronunciation rules for Latin I learned a long time ago. For example, these rules include always pronouncing 'c' as 'k', never as 's'. 

Complicated, isn't it? But do not worry too much. Speculative biology is for fun, and we shouldn't worry too muuch or get overexcited about how to pronounce made-up names of made-up life forms in a dead language.