Humans find birds important as food, symbols, competitors, and objects for amusement or study, and give names to different groups or species of bird. However, a single bird may have many names, likely related to different contexts. This article proposes that each bird name can be placed on the intersection of three contextual axes: 1) diachronic, with the name changing over time; 2) taxonomic, reflecting its place in a scientific or folk classification system; and 3) stylistic, according to the formality of the name, with its subaxis of compliance with regional versus global English naming norms. In South Africa, these axes float in a multilingual soup of indigenous, imported and modified languages, providing a fascinating diversity in bird naming. For instance, Austin Roberts in 1940 used the name Golden Bishop Bird Taha taha taha for the southern African race of the stunning bee-like Yellow-crowned Bishop, ‘taha’ taken from the Tswana word for finch and rendered in scientific Latin. This splendid formal name no longer exists, having succumbed to scientific progress and the necessity for global conformity in English bird naming. Using these intersecting onomastic axes provides a framework for additional study of bird names in South Africa and elsewhere.

人类发现鸟类作为重要的食物，象征，竞争者和娱乐或学习对象，并为不同的鸟类或鸟类命名。但是，一只鸟可能有许多名字，可能与不同的背景有关。本文提出，可以将每个鸟的名字放在三个上下文轴的交点上：1）历时性，名字随时间变化；2）分类学，反映其在科学或民间分类系统中的地位；（3）根据名称的形式，以风格为依据，其子轴符合区域和全球英语命名规范。在南非，这些斧头漂浮在由本地，进口和修改语言组成的多语种汤中，为鸟类命名提供了引人入胜的多样性。例如，奥斯汀·罗伯茨（Austin Roberts）在1940年将“金主教飞鸟”（Bishop Bird Taha taha taha taha taha）的名字用在南部非洲的惊人的像蜜蜂一样的黄冠主教身上，“ taha”取自茨瓦纳语中的雀科，并用科学拉丁语表达。这种出色的正式名称已不存在，因为它已经促进了科学进步，并且在英语鸟类命名中具有全球统一性的必要性。使用这些相交的异常轴为南非和其他地方的鸟类名称的进一步研究提供了框架。