Late this spring (https://web.colby.edu/mainebirds/2021/05/31/common-bird-names-and-eponyms/), I wrote about a movement to remove people’s names from the common names of birds. In large part, this movement is driven because some of these eponyms honor people with disreputable pasts. Most recently, McCown’s Longspur was changed to Thick-billed Longspur because McCown was a Confederate leader and advocate of slavery. Rather than review every eponym to see if the person has skeletons in his or her closet, advocates are arguing for the replacement of all eponyms with an adjective that describes some morphological or behavioral feature of each species.
The American Orniithological Congress is spearheading this initiative. In April, they hosted a Community Congress with many stakeholders in an effort to be as inclusive as possible. The virtual discussion is available on-line: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=84GchnXInb8