Footnote: You can follow this debate by googling 'Red Admiral': my own view is that both origin explanations have some validity, but words tend to morph over time, and it is often difficult to find out the truth. Many names of common plants, animals, birds and insects were local until the C18th, the 'Age of Reason', when local unsung heroes and wildlife enthusiasts started to attempt more rigorous species classification and agree on a common nomenclature - of both English and Latin names. We owe them all a huge debt.
Perhaps the greatest of these was Carl Linnaeus ... a Swedish botanist, zoologist, taxonomist, and physician who formalised binomial nomenclature, the modern system of naming organisms. He is known as the "father of modern taxonomy". Many of his writings were in Latin, and his name is rendered in Latin as Carolus Linnæus (after 1761 Carolus a Linné).
Footnote: You can follow this debate by googling 'Red Admiral': my own view is that both origin explanations have some validity, but words tend to morph over time, and it is often difficult to find out the truth. Many names of common plants, animals, birds and insects were local until the C18th, the 'Age of Reason', when local unsung heroes and wildlife enthusiasts started to attempt more rigorous species classification and agree on a common nomenclature - of both English and Latin names. We owe them all a huge debt.
Perhaps the greatest of these was Carl Linnaeus ... a Swedish botanist, zoologist, taxonomist, and physician who formalised binomial nomenclature, the modern system of naming organisms. He is known as the "father of modern taxonomy". Many of his writings were in Latin, and his name is rendered in Latin as Carolus Linnæus (after 1761 Carolus a Linné).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Linnaeus