Revised 17 Sept. 2022
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Clupea Linnaeus 1758 Latin vernacular for a herring-like fish, perhaps derived from Clypea or Clupea, a North African coastal town (2nd century BC) whose name was confused by Renaissance naturalists (e.g., Rondelet and Salviani) with a fish (probably a lamprey) but also applied by Giovio (1524), along with “alosa,” for the species now known as Alosa alosa (Alosidae)

Clupea harengus Linnaeus 1758 Medieval Latin for herring, probably derived from an Old English (hǽring, heringas), Old Frisian (hêreng), Old High German (hâring), or similar Anglo-Saxon or Germanic vernacular

Clupea harengus membras Wulff 1765 Greek word for a kind of herring or anchovy (i.e., a small silvery fish that lives in the sea), dating to at least Aristotle [sometimes wrongly dated to Linnaeus 1761, who used the name as a vernacular]

Clupea pallasii Valenciennes 1847 in honor of German-born Russian explorer-naturalist Peter Simon Pallas (1741–1811), who reported this herring as a form of C. harengus in his 1811 Zoographia Rosso-Asiatica

Clupea pallasii marisalbi Berg 1923 maris, genitive of mare (L.), sea; albus (L.), white, referring to the White Sea of Russia, where it occurs, principally in the western and southern portions

Clupea pallasii suworowi Svetovidov 1973 in honor of Soviet ichthyologist Evgenii Konstantinovich Suvorov (1880–1953), the first to investigate herrings from Cheshskaya Guba (Chosha Bay), inlet of the Barents Sea, Russian, type locality [an infrasubspecific name coined by Rabinerson in 1927, made available by Svetovidov]

Ethmidium Thompson 1916 etymology not explained, probably ēthmós (Gr. ἠθμός), sieve or strainer, referring to long and numerous gill rakers; –idium (L.), diminutive suffix connoting resemblance

Ethmidium maculatum (Valenciennes 1847) Latin for spotted, referring to scattered spots on silver flank

Hyperlophus Ogilby 1892 hypér (Gr. ὑπέρ), beyond, over, above or very; lóphos (Gr. λόφος), mane or crest, referring to dorsal scutes between occiput and dorsal fin of Clupea sprattellides (=H. vittatus)

Hyperlophus translucidus McCulloch 1917 Latin for translucent, referring to its translucent body in life

Hyperlophus vittatus (Castelnau 1875) Latin for banded, referring to silvery band along flank

Potamalosa Ogilby 1897 potamós (Gr. ποταμός), river, referring to its occurrence in fresh water; alosa (L.), shad, often used as a suffix in names of shads and herrings

Potamalosa richmondia (Macleay 1879) -ia (L. suffix), pertaining to: Richmond River, New South Wales, Australia, type locality

Ramnogaster Whitehead 1965 rhámnos (Gr. ῥάμνος), a prickly shrub; gastḗr (Gr. γαστήρ), belly or stomach, referring to “strongly serrated” abdominal scutes

Ramnogaster arcuata (Jenyns 1842) Latin for bent like a bow, probably referring to its deep body, “with the ventral line swelling rather more outwards than the dorsal”

Ramnogaster melanostoma (Eigenmann 1907) mélanos (Gr. μέλανος), genitive of mélas (μέλας), black; stóma (Gr. στόμα), mouth (but treated as an adjective, mouthed), referring to its black upper lip

Sprattus Girgensohn 1846 Latinization of sprat, from the Old English sprot, a herring or herring-like fish, from the name of Clupea sprattus Linnaeus 1758 (which Girgensohn apparently renamed as Sprattus haleciformis to avoid “Strickland tautonomy”)

Sprattus antipodum (Hector 1872) antipódōn (Gr. ἀντιπόδων), genitive plural of antipódes (ἀντίποδες), antipodeans, “with feet opposite ours,” now used to denote any diametrically opposed point in Earth, referring to this sprat’s occurrence in New Zealand, figuratively the other side of the world from the British Isles

Sprattus fuegensis (Jenyns 1842) –ensis, Latin suffix denoting place: Tierra del Fuego (off Cabo Santa Inés, Argentina), type locality

Sprattus muelleri (Klunzinger 1879) in honor of Ferdinand von Mueller (1825–1896), German-born Australian explorer-naturalist, who donated his extensive collection of Australian plant and animal specimens, including holotype of this species, to what is now the Stuttgart State Museum of Natural History (Baden-Württemberg, Germany)

Sprattus novaehollandiae (Valenciennes 1847) of New Holland, historic name for Australia, where type locality (Port Jackson, New South Wales) is situated

Sprattus sprattus (Linnaeus 1758) Latinization of sprat, from the Old English sprot, a herring or herring-like fish, a word historically applied to this species

Sprattus sprattus balticus Schneider 1908 -icus (L.), belonging to: Baltic Sea, where it occurs

Sprattus sprattus phalericus (Risso 1827) based on “De Aphya phalerica” of Rondelet (Libri de piscibus marinis, 1554), a sardine-like fish mentioned by Aristotle from Phalerica (modern-day Palaio Faliro, the western harbor of Athens, Greece, although Risso’s specimen was from Nice, France); etymologically, phalerica has been traced back to “waves crested with white foam,” a phrase from Homer’s Iliad cited (without attribution) by Rondelet, indicating a connection between the bright, shiny exterior of the fish and the Greek harbor in which it supposedly occurred

Strangomera Whitehead 1965 strangos (Gr.), bent or twisted; meros (Gr.), a part, referring to its bent epibranchial gill rakers

Strangomera bentincki (Norman 1936) in honor of British diplomat Victor Cavendish-Bentinck (1897–1990), British Embassy, Santiago, Chile, whose “kindness” led to the donation of a “very interesting” collection of Chilean marine fishes, including holotype of this one, to the British Museum (Natural History)