The above image is courtesy Waquoit Bay Fish Company
Once upon a time — OK, the 1700s — there was a Swedish botanist named Carl Linnaeus. Linnaeus became obsessed with creating “binomial nomenclature” for every living thing, inventing two words per creature, arbitrarily using Latin and Greek.
The guy was on the spectrum for sure; obsession drove him to publish “Systema Naturae” in 1758. Amazingly, many of the names he invented exist to this day.
We live in a place with a fishy name, so here are some formal fish monikers, though I will not vouch for my pronunciation of Latin or Greek:
Atlantic cod: Gadus morhua
Gadus is Latin for fish, cod being the quintessential expression. Morhua is our kind of cod.
Lobster: Homarus americanus
Homarus comes via Latin to French for lobster, the americanus tag to indicate that the Northeast, big-clawed, hard-shell version is our true national standard.
Quahog: Mercenaria mercenaria
Linnaeus knew Native Americans used wampum as currency among other things, and wampum came from quahog shell. So he created this name as in mercantile exchange, money money.
Halibut: Hippoglossus hippoglossus
Hippo means horse in Greek, and glossa means tongue. Again offered twice, an apt description and emphasis for this big flat fish.
Jonah crab: Cancer borealis
Cancer is Latin for crab, also used then as now; the shape of tumors suggested crabs. Borealis means northern waters, as in aurora borealis, lights in northern skies.
Green crab: Carcinus maenas
The fun part is that maenas translates as frenzied, raving, deriving from the Maenads, Greek women known to get drunk and crazy, followers of Dionysius. For those who know green crab behavior, this makes sense.
Bay scallop: Argopecten irradians
Argo is Jason’s mythical Greek ship with Argonauts onboard, chosen perhaps because these bivalves propel through the water. Pecten is Latin for comb, as they look. Irradians also is Latin, to shine or radiate, as they do in the water.
Sea scallop: Placopecten magellanicus
Pecten (comb) shows up for another scallop, while placo means flat, so a flat comb. Magellan was a Portuguese explorer, as in the Magellan straits. How this relates to scallops is a mystery to me.
Atlantic salmon: Salmo salar
Salmo in Latin is salmon, and salar means to leap. Makes sense to anyone who has seen a salmon run.
Atlantic surf clam: Spisula solidissima
Spisula is genus for bivalves. Solidissima is Latin meaning hard or solid, which is true about these shells.
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And so, all this said, you might still ask, what’s in a name?
I’d say a lot.
