Chris, To address your statement: "Would there not be any regulatory body, or other organization interested enough to set this up?" I don't perceive there being enough scientific or intrinsic value to this from an institutions perspective. It would probably have to be someone's pet project that they let them do on the side. If an organization tried to do it, most of the members would be against it as frivolous & non-scientific. Case in point is the clouded history of: Mollusks: Common & Scientific Names of Aquatic Invertebrates from the United States & Canada. Hierarchy of organizations involved: AMU American Malacological Union CSM Council of Systematic Malacologists CNC Committee on Common Names of Mollusks AFS American Fisheries Society CNAI Committee on Names of Aquatic Invertebrates This is a very abbreviated version, I will e-mail a full text to any requestor ([log in to unmask]) The Common Names project was performed through organizations by committees. Government agencies like the Nat’l Marine Fisheries Serv had discussed for years that they wanted common names for species to satisfy the needs of politicians & legislation requirements on US wildlife other than fish. At that time anybody & everybody seemed to be creating names, some rather whimsical (e.g. "pisser clam" etc) A Mussel in Ohio could be called something different in Kentucky so they wanted a standardized checklist. In 1978 CNC was formed. The AMU membership debated & ultimately concluded its members should guide the project. However, some of the officers & members of AMU thought that AMU should not be involved in the project at all & were actively opposed to it. The compelling argument was that it is going to be done & as such should be by Malacologists & not bureaucrats. In 1982, Donna Turgeon presented the AFS’s initiative to the AMU & CSM & said that the AFS project would be done with or without them. Somewhere along the line, there was an ideology transition from it being a list of North American species list with common names only for commercially valuable or endangered species, etc., to a name for every shell. How & why this changed is uncertain. As time went by, little was done through AMU/CSM except for the annual committee meetings. Once Dr. Turgeon became the AMU committee Chair things finally got rolling. Seeing a business opportunity, Tucker Abbott unsuccessfully tried to get this as a publication of AMI. Also Tucker did not like some of the AFS Principles & Rules Governing the Selection of Common Names & create controversy in the group. Specifically, he did not like the rule on patronyms that "Names intended to honor persons are discouraged in that they are without descriptive value". Many of Tucker's patronymic common names were retained, however, under an exception to the principle since they were well established in the literature. Tucker is not listed among the final (1985) committee members, as an editor, or a reviewer, but is cited for his work with the Marine Bivalves list; but the 1998 - 2nd ed is dedicated to him. Finally in 1988 after 10 years & a cost of about $30k it came off press through AFS. The 1st Ed has 277 pg, 14 pl, covers 5700 sp, 332 fam, 31 orders, & all 6 classes. None of the authors benefited financially from it.