Nomenclature

Nomenclature is a term that applies to either a list of names or terms,or to refer to something that is a term or to the system of principles, procedures and terms related to naming—which is the assigning of a word or phrase to a particular object, event, or property. The principles of naming vary from the relatively informal conventions of everyday speech to the internationally-agreed principles, rules and recommendations that govern the formation and use of the specialist terms used in scientific and other disciplines.

Naming "things" is a part of our general communication using words and language: it is an aspect of everyday taxonomy as we distinguish the objects of our experience, together with their similarities and differences, which we identify, name and classify. The use of names, as the many different kinds of nouns embedded in different languages, connects nomenclature to theoretical linguistics, while the way we mentally structure the world in relation to word meanings and experience relates to the philosophy of language.

Onomastics, the study of proper names and their origins, includes: anthroponymy, concerned with human names, including personal names, surnames and nicknames; toponymy the study of place names; and etymology, the derivation, history and use of names as revealed through comparative and descriptive linguistics.

The scientific need for simple, stable and internationally-accepted systems for naming objects of the natural world has generated many formal nomenclatural systems. Probably the best known of these nomenclatural systems are the five codes of biological nomenclature that govern the Latinized scientific names of organisms.