Scientific names simply make things easier for scientists. For example, you might have a creature in Vulcan, Alberta with the common name “stinky beetle”. Everyone around Vulcan calls this a “stinky beetle”. But, over in El Paso, Texas, they also have a beetle everyone calls “stinky beetle”. Well, let's say a scientist wants to study the “stinky beetle”. Which beetle will the scientist study? Are they the same species of beetle? What if they're not the same species of beetle? Shouldn't they have different names then? It can get confusing.

So, while locally-accepted names work for non-scientists, scientists need a system and they have one called taxonomy. Every species on Earth (or at least the ones we know about) has a taxonomic name: its own unique two-part scientific name, in Latin. This makes it easier for scientists to communicate about a certain species. Let's say you're a Canadian scientist studying crucian carp and you want to talk with other scientists who study crucian carp. This fish is found from Spain across Europe and north-central Asia to northern China. So there are going to be a few other names for the crucian carp. In Finland, for example, they call that fish Ruutana. The crucian carp's taxonomic name is Carassius carassius, that way all the scientists know, no matter where they're from, what fish they're talking about.

Scientific names also tell you something about an animal. Carassius is the genus (the generic name). Most genera (plural of genus) have more than one member. Sharing a genus name means animals are closely related to each other – more so than to other genera. Names are also descriptive. In this case, Carassius, is Latin for carp. The crucian carp's specific name (species name) is also carassius. Carp carp. One of its relatives however, is named Carassius auratus -- that's “goldfish”. Auratus is “gold” in Latin. Cool, eh?

An example of a neat descriptive genus name is “myotis”, this is a genus of bat, “mouse-eared” bats.

By the way, if you want to know more, the father of taxonomy is Carl Linnaeus. He came up with the system for naming, ranking, and classifying organisms in the 1700s and he published a multi-volume work titled, Systema Naturae.