Risto A. Väisänen, Harri Högmander, Heidi Björklund, Lauri Hänninen, Matti Lammin-Soila, Juhani Lokki and Visa Rauste

The previous version of the Finnish Names of the Birds of the World was published by the Finnish Ornithological Society in 1999. About 9500 names had been created in almost 20 years. The systematics applied followed the second edition of the checklist of Howard & Moore (1992). When the excellent third edition of Howard & Moore became available in 2003, the need to update the Finnish bird names became obvious. The Nomenclatural Committee of BirdLife Finland made it in 2004–2006 by continuing the work of previous committees (the Finnish Ornithological Society ceased its activities in 2005). The effort resulted in the Finnish names for 194 families, 1227 genera and 9740 species. New or changed names number in total 2086, containing 824 species names. The systematic list contains scientific, Finnish and English names for each taxon (English names of genera are missing, because H&M3 does not present these). Changes in the Finnish names are presented before the systematic list.

Each row starts with a number code xxx.yyyy.zzzz that contains the running numbers of xxx = family, yyyy = genus and zzzz = species. At the end there are three indices, based on the English, scientific and Finnish names. Taxa presented are referenced by the number code, which is quick to use. When the resulting number code is in square brackets [xxx.yyyy.zzzz], the sought name belongs to those of the previous list from the year 1999, and has changed. When the resulting number is in parenthesis ( ), one has found a running number of such taxon from the old list that has no equivalent in the new system.

In the systematic list column “Vanha no.” contains the running number of species in the system from the year 1999 (always in parenthesis); column “E” indicates extinct species (# or #?) and genera incertae sedis of H&M3 are indicated by symbol *; column “H&M sivu” contains the page number of Howard & Moore; column “T” indicates a change in the scientific name made by H&M3 (! = new and + = changed name for family or species) and code “a” depicts 18 subspecies of H&M3 that are treated as species here (see AERC/TAC, www.aerc.eu); column “Tieteellinen nimi” contains the scientific names of H&M3 with corrections of “Corrigenda 5” taken into account; column S indicates the new or changed Finnish name by “+”; column “Nimi suomeksi” gives the Finnish names (family names in capitals) and column “Nimi englanniksi” contains the English names of H&M3.