This article examines the revised International Rules of Zoological Nomenclature approved at the XIV International Congress of Zoology in Copenhagen in 1953. The author reviews the extensive literature surrounding this nomenclatural revision, which totals over 1,500 pages across multiple publications. A key focus is comparing zoological nomenclatural terminology with that used in bacteriology and botany, revealing significant discrepancies that create confusion across disciplines. The article details important terminology changes, such as replacing "binary nomenclature" with "binominal nomenclature" and redefining "specific name" to mean only the second component of a species designation, rather than the entire scientific name. The author notes that bacteriology's term "specific epithet" more accurately describes a descriptive adjective used in species names. The article identifies several other definitional shifts regarding trinomen, subspecies, homonyms, and infrasubspecific forms, while cautioning that some inaccuracies appear in the revised rules, including errors in Greek-to-Latin transliteration tables. The author suggests bacteriologists should carefully consider these zoological developments when revising their own nomenclatural code.

Key findings

• The Copenhagen 1953 zoological nomenclature revision introduced terminology changes including "binominal nomenclature" replacing "binary nomenclature" and redefining "specific name" as only the second component of species names.
• Significant terminology discrepancies exist between zoological, bacteriological, and botanical nomenclatural systems, creating confusion across biological disciplines with no apparent coordinated effort to standardize terminology.
• The term "specific epithet" used in bacteriology more accurately describes the grammatical nature of descriptive adjectives in species names than the zoological term "specific name."
• The revised zoological rules contain some inaccuracies, including errors in Greek-to-Latin transliteration in the appendix.
• Bacteriologists should carefully evaluate these zoological nomenclatural developments for potential application to their own code revisions.