What's in a name?

First of all, let's address this cat/dog shark/fish confusion. According to the Shark Trust, dogfish are a deep sea species and have live young whereas catsharks lay eggs. You can also distinguish a dogfish by their lack of an anal fin. What was once the lesser spotted dogfish has been reclassified as the small spotted catshark by these identifying factors, but the dogfish name has been around for so long that it has stuck.

Just to complicate things further, the meat of some species of dogfish is sometimes referred to as rock salmon. Unfortunately, one of these species is the endangered spiny dogfish and the Shark Trust are urging people not to buy rock salmon from their local fish and chip shop.

The fish counter is also the root of another recent name change. Last year, one particular supermarket rebranded pollock (or pollack) to its French name of colin (pronounced co-lan) to make it more appealing to British shoppers. Behind this publicity stunt lies real concern over the stocks of cod and haddock. And does colin and chips sound like a nice Friday night treat?

Beneath the waves is another master of disguise in the form of the killer whale. These phenomenal black and white predators aren't whales at all but the largest member of the dolphin family. They're perhaps more accurately referred to as orcas. Their scientific name orcinus orca comes from Orcus, the ferocious Roman god of the netherworld.

Back on land, thankfully the majority of our mammals have solid, dependable common names but there's always room for a little regional variation. Any ideas what royal hunters, red nannys or hedgepigs might be better known as?

Pine martens are sometimes known as sweetmarts, possibly due to their sweet-smelling 'scats' or poo. Stoats, meanwhile, go through a complete transformation in the winter, taking up the title ermine to complement their white coats.

Whether you call them cheese bugs, roly-polys, slaters, chucky/chuggy pigs, doodle bugs, sow bugs or pill bugs, we're all familiar with woodlice but are there differences between them? According to the folks at Buglife, many of these names are related to the 'rolled up' appearance of Armadillidium woodlice, while slaters are seashore dwellers or water lice. If you're as baffled by all this as I am and want to know the official name for your woodlouse try the Natural History Museum's identifier.

With thousands of 'creepy-crawlies' it's perhaps unsurprising we use one name to describe lots of different species. Daddy long legs for example can be crane flies, harvestmen or cellar spiders in reference to their spindly limbs.

For every perfectly descriptive common name there's a very misleading one. Take for example the slow worm. Is it a worm? Is it a snake? No, it's a legless lizard! And not a particularly slow one either!

Up in the skies, our bird populations have more aliases than James Bond. Did you know that feral pigeons are domesticated rock doves? You can still find wild rock doves in parts of Scotland but the familiar grey scavengers on our city streets are the product of centuries of breeding for domestic purposes such as carrying messages.

Another bird that's had a change of name is the dunnock, which some of you may know as the hedge sparrow. According to the RSPB, this is to save confusion as these familiar birds aren't actually members of the sparrow family, they're accentors.

Hmmm. I'm as confused now as when I started. Hopefully everything is now as clear as mud for you too! What strange names baffle you? Did you grow up calling an animal one name only for you to find it had changed when you reached adulthood?