Open-access ornithological database
AvianLexiconAtlas
The AvianLexiconAtlas is a database of descriptive categories for the officially recognized eBird/Clements English-language bird names for all species of birds. The database currently includes datasets of assigned categories for all English-language species names in the 2021-2025 eBird/Clements checklists and the 1886 AOU Checklist of North American Birds, along with a glossary & gazetteer compiled during the data collection. This project is co-led by Erin S. Morrison, PhD (Clinical Associate Professor, New York University Liberal Studies) and Allison J. Shultz, PhD (Associate Curator, Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County).
The website hosts Google Sheets versions of the 1886 and 2021-2025 datasets and a Google Docs version of the glossary and gazetteer. See the AvianLexiconAtlas GitHub for downloadable csv files of the dataset and a PDF of the glossary and gazetteer.
Stay tuned for future expansions of the database!
Publication
Morrison, E.S., Pandolfi, G.P., Aguillon, S.M., Ali, J.R., Archard, O., Baldassarre, D.T., Baquero, I., Bennett, K.F.P., Bonney, K.M., Bryant, R., Catanach, R.M., Catanach, T.A., Chavoshan, I., Davis, S.N., Goodman, B.D., Gulson-Castillo, E.R., Hack, M., He, Y., Hudon, J., Leighton, G.M., Long, K.M., Ma, Z., McCoy, D.E., McLaughlin, J.F., Moreno, G.R., Mota, T.M., Noguchi, L., Nwigwe, U., Pegan, T., Provost, K., Rasband, S.A., Salter, J.F., Silvernail, L.C., Simard, J.A., Skeen, H.R., Soto-Patiño, J., Suh, Y.H., Wang, Q., Warshauer, M.E., Yan, S., Zalinski, B., Zhao, Z., & Shultz, A.J. (2025) AvianLexiconAtlas: A database of descriptive categories of English-language bird names around the world. PLoS One 20(5):e0325890. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0325890
Datasets
Links to Google Sheets versions of the 1886 and 2021-2025 datasets are available here. Downloadable CSV files of the datasets are available at the AvianLexiconAtlas GitHub site.
Loading datasets…
Categories
Categories used to group unique descriptors in English-language common names of bird species
How Does Categorization of Species Names Work?
A majority of bird species' English-language common names contain a unique descriptor followed by a name it shares with closely related species. Only the unique descriptor in a species' English-language common name, not the shared name, was categorized for the database.
Example
The unique descriptors in Common Ostrich (Struthio camelus) and Somali Ostrich (Struthio molybdophanes) are 'Common' and 'Somali', respectively, while the shared name is 'Ostrich'.
Try categorizing the species' names in the examples below!
Test Your Knowledge
Great Egret: Choose which category is associated with the unique descriptor GREAT
Eurasian Griffon
Image of Eurasian Griffon (Gyps fulvus) from Birds of the World. Sexes are alike in plumage.
Eurasian Griffon: Choose which category is associated with the unique descriptor EURASIAN
Savannah Sparrow
Image of Savannah Sparrow (Passerculus sandwichensis) from Birds of the World. Sexes are alike in plumage.
Savannah Sparrow: Choose which category is associated with the unique descriptor SAVANNAH
Gray-bellied Flowerpiercer
Images of Gray-bellied Flowerpiercer (Diglossa carbonaria) from Birds of the World. Sexes are alike in plumage.
Gray-bellied Flowerpiercer: Choose which category is associated with the unique descriptor GRAY-BELLIED
Rufous Hummingbird
Challenge
Images of Rufous Hummingbird (Selasphorus rufus) from Birds of the World.
Rufous Hummingbird: Choose which category is associated with the unique descriptor RUFOUS
Glossary
— descriptive terms used in bird names.View full glossary in Google Docs →
Gazetteer
— common geographical terms in bird names. Majority compiled thanks to Dr. Jess McLaughlin.
Eponyms
A list of bird species named after ornithologists, explorers, and historical figures. Click the heading above to view the full spreadsheet created and maintained by Bird Names for Birds.
AvianLexiconAtlas in the News
The Academic Minute. (2025, October 15). Erin Morrison, New York University – Linguistics Is For The Birds.
Devitt, J. (2025, June 11). What's in a Name? New Research Catalogues How Birds Are Categorized by What We Call Them. NYU News.
Hayden, T. (2025, June 11). A First Step to Bird Names as Simple as ABC. Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County.
Acknowledgments
1886 AOU Checklist of North American Birds
Mia Kimura and Annika van der Wende
2023-2025 eBird/Clements Checklist
Annalee Debenport, Mia Kimura, Nusrat Rahman, Annika van der Wende, and members of the NYU Linguistics of Names (LING-UA 2) Fall 2025 course: Sydney Alveda, Margo Anderson-Song, Rich Au, Andrew Black, Robin Chen, Lisa Davidson, Rapha Dieng, Franklin Dong, Alinna Gonzalez, One Kim, Andrew Kuznetsov, Lucia Laski, Laurel MacKenzie, Moyu Nakamoto, Caitlin Phillips, Jules Richards, Elanna Schustack, Teagan Serpa, Kaya Talbert, Konsantina Tsahalis, Mads Weiss, Zeke Wise, Nate Young, Xi Zhu
2021 & 2022 eBird/Clements Checklist
Birds of the World provided complimentary 1-week subscriptions for the student and amateur participants during the initial data collection for the 2021 & 2022 eBird/Clements taxonomy.
Eden Bayou, Jacob Bijou, Jakiya J. Campbell, Emily Chen, Cindy Cheng, Reema Demopoulos, Savannah Garza, Tamar Hadad, Yujing He, Mia Hejlsberg, Jikke Inia, Yoonseo Jang, Zilai Jin, Risa Kanai, Nick Kruczynski, Langrun Li, Yujia Liu, Queenie Liu, Ziqi Ma, Nyjur Majok, Cecilia Méndez, Kimi Modiri, Yazmin Munoz, Iyioluwa Okediji, Sophia Ordonez, Mohammed Osmanu, Yian Pan, Wend-manegde Pitroipa, Stephanie Salas, Rylie Shaeffer, Andrew Shafer, Paul Shen, Jesse Sivan, Ciaran Timlin, Bryant To, Alexander Valenzuela-Jones, Frances Vandervoort, Nicholas Walsh, Qingyue Wang, Ruoxi Ye, Yawei Zhang, Guicheng Zhang, Yuchong Zhu, Brian Zou
Website Design
Website created with Lovable and designed and maintained by Mia Kimura.
Artwork
Artwork by Jacelyn Shu. Species in logo (descriptor term in bold and assigned category in brackets): female belted kingfisher (Megaceryle alcyon) [female only physical trait], Rwenzori turaco (Gallirex johnstoni) [geographic location], male king bird-of-paradise (Cininnurus regius) [miscellaneous].