Updated 23 Aug. 2026
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Etroplus Cuvier 1830 ḗtron (ἦτρον), abdomen; oplus, from hóplon (ὅπλον), shield or armor, referring to prominent anal-fin spines

Etroplus canarensis Day 1877 -ensis, Latin suffix denoting place: South Canara, southwestern India, type locality

Etroplus suratensis (Bloch 1790) -ensis, Latin suffix denoting place: Suratte, India, type locality

Paretroplus Bleeker 1868 pará (παρά), near, i.e., similar to Etroplus but distinguished by its dentition
Paretroplus dambabe Sparks 2002 compound Malagasy word (pronounced dambah bay): damba, originally used by Merina fish traders for a number of species of Paretroplus in northwestern Madagascar; be, large, referring to large size relative to most congeners

Paretroplus damii Bleeker 1868 in honor of Dutch explorer and naturalist Douwe Casparus van Dam (1827–1898), who collected holotype with Dutch naturalist and merchant François Pollen (1842–1888) [see Paratilapia polleni, Ptychochrominae]

Paretroplus gymnopreopercularis Sparks 2008 gymnós (γυμνός), bare or naked; opercularis (L.), opercular, referring to scaleless preopercle

Paretroplus kieneri Arnoult 1960 in honor of André Kiener (1906–1976), French fisheries researcher who conducted numerous studies in Madagascar in the 1950s and 1960s and provided type specimens (he also co-described P. maculatus)

Paretroplus lamenabe Sparks 2008 compound Malagasy word: lamena, red one; be, large, referring to both coloration in life and large size relative to members of its sister clade, P. tsimoly and P. nourissati

Paretroplus loisellei Sparks & Schelly 2011 in honor of Paul V. Loiselle (1945–2025), Emeritus Curator of Freshwater Fishes, New York Aquarium, for directing the authors’ attention to this new taxon, and for his efforts to document, preserve, and educate the public regarding Madagascar’s unique and severely threatened freshwater fishes

Paretroplus maculatus Kiener & Maugé 1966 Latin for spotted, referring to black humeral spot, which gets bigger as fish gets older

Paretroplus maromandia Sparks & Reinthal 1999 named for Maromandia, town and general region in northwestern Madagascar, type locality (from the Malagasy maro-, many, and –mandia, “to tread on or to go on a way [=journey]”)

Paretroplus menarambo Allgayer 1996 local Malagasy name for this cichlid (mea, red; rambo, tail), referring to vivid red caudal-fin margin of mature specimens

Paretroplus nourissati (Allgayer 1998) in honor of French cichlid aquarist and collector Jean Claude Nourissat (1942–2003), who risked his life looking for new species in Madagascar, including this one (he died from malaria three days after returning from his last trip there)

Paretroplus petiti Pellegrin 1929 in honor of French zoologist-anatomist Georges Petit (1892–1973), Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle (Paris), who collected holotype

Paretroplus polyactis Bleeker 1878 polý (πολύ), many; aktís (ἀκτίς), ray, allusion not explained, perhaps referring to more soft anal-fin rays (13–16) compared with P. damii (11–12), the only other species known at the time; Sparks (2008) interprets actis to mean ray (of light) or sunbeam, probably referring to reddish, orange and brown coloration in life

Paretroplus tsimoly Sparks & Sparks 2025 Malagasy name (pronounced tsee-mool) for this cichlid in the Sakalava dialect spoken in the Akalimilotrabe region of Madagascar, type locality

Paretroplus risengi Stiassny, Chakrabarty & Loiselle 2001 in honor of limnologist Karen J. Riseng (wife of John Sparks, specialist in Madagascan cichlids), who collected holotype with the first author on their initial trip to Madagascar in 1994 as graduate students, for her “immense help and support in the field on that and subsequent expeditions to document the poorly known freshwater ecosystems and ichthyofauna of Madagascar” [preferably spelled risengae since name honors a woman, but ICZN 32.5.1 forbids such a correction]

Pseudetroplus Bleeker 1862 pseudo-, from pseúdēs (ψεύδης), false, i.e., although similar to Etroplus, such an appearance is false

Pseudetroplus maculatus (Bloch 1795) Latin for spotted, allusion not explained, referring to rows of small orange spots on body and/or 2–5 large sooty spots on side