Binomial nomenclature
- Olympiad · NSEJS
Binomial nomenclature is the system of giving every kind of living thing a two-part scientific name: its genus, then its species.
Common names change from place to place. A mango has one name in Hindi, another in Tamil and another in English. A scientific name is the same everywhere, so scientists always know which living thing is meant. The system was made popular by Carl Linnaeus.
The rules for writing it
- The first word is the genus. It starts with a capital letter.
- The second word is the species. It starts with a small letter.
- The name is printed in italics. When written by hand, each word is underlined.
A small example
- Human: Homo sapiens.
- Mango: Mangifera indica.
- Tiger: Panthera tigris.
- Lion: Panthera leo.
Look at the tiger and the lion. They share the first word, Panthera, so they belong to the same genus. They are close relatives. The second word shows they are different species. So a scientific name also tells you something about how living things are grouped.
A common slip is to write homo sapiens with a small h, or Homo Sapiens with a capital S. Only the genus takes a capital.
Where it fits
This goes beyond the Class 10 board syllabus. HBCSE's Junior Science syllabus lists it under biological diversity, as scientific naming. That syllabus is for NSEJS, which the Indian Association of Physics Teachers (IAPT) conducts.
Sources
Facts last checked against these sources on 30 September 2026.
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