A scientific name in honor of a person or persons is known as a taxonomic eponym or eponymic; patronym and matronym are the gendered terms for this.

A number of humorous species names also exist. Literary examples include the genus name Borogovia (an extinct dinosaur), which is named after the borogove, a mythical character from Lewis Carroll's poem "Jabberwocky". A second example, Macrocarpaea apparata