sometimes you just have to wonder where the common names of these fish came from...

[Magnum Man]

sitting here watching my fish... on the front glass of the hillstream tank, comes my biggest, fattest, "Flying Fox" this fish has way more in common, with a weather loach, than it does with a fox, or the bat, called a flying fox... they are very plain, and not good for much... touted as an algae eater by the pet store that sold it to me 3-4 years ago, they really don't eat much algae, and as witness by my hillstream's, there are many more interesting sucker mouth fish...

what's your worst common name fit, on your fish??

 

[raylove]

Angelfish!

 

[GaryE]

Celestial pearl danio. Celestial? It's a bottom of the tank fish. Pearl danio? There was already a beautiful established in the hobby fish with that marketing name.

All English names are marketing names invented to sell the fish, generally by dealers.

 

[Back in the fold]

My “ Golden Wonder “ Aplocheilus lineatus . That name is just plain stupid . What , like the Boy Wonder ? Gary suggested Golden Pike once as something more suitable and I like that but it’ll never catch on . Not crazy about “ Oscar “ for the Astronotus occelatus (?) cichlid either .

 

[gimme30]

Slippery dick. (Halichoeres bivittatus) I guess it sorta fits and is kinda funny, but really? Didn't think "Old wife" fit Enoplosus armatus either. Mine never yelled at me to take out the trash.
The naming nerds must get liquored up and throw darts at a list.

 

[GaryE]

I named a fish once. I had Apistogramma species (undescribed) 'vielfleck', a reference to its spots. To me in English, it sounded like that handsome fish was talking with a mouthful of veal, flicking spots of it all over everyone listening. I thought the German name did a beautiful fish an injustice.

So when a stunning new Apistogramma, unnamed species came in, one I unfortunately have never seen again, I wrote an article on it. It was a luminous blue fish, and I had to give it a hobby name. I chose to get my linguistic revenge by naming it Apistogramma sp Blue Mist. If the Germans were going to be veal flecking (in English), then I was going poetic, since 'mist' in German is crap.

It got a good laugh out of my German fish friends. But alas, back in the heyday of undescribed Apisto imports, it vanished from the hobby like mist. I saw a vielflack again recently though. There's always hope.

I'm a nerd.