Below is a list of several insects in both their common names and their scientific names. These scientific names, usually in Latin, are put together from words that represent what the insect is, who discovered it or what it can do. The first name is the insect's genus name and is always capitalized, while the second name is its species name and is always lowercase. Scientific names should always be italicized when typed and underlined when hand-written.

This system for naming was developed by Swedish taxonomist Carl Linnae. He changed his own name to Carolus Linnaeus to reflect his dedication to Latinizing all organisms for classificiation. This two-name naming system is called binomial nomenclature. It radically simplified sharing research and discoveries in the scientific community. For instance, a single insect could have 2,3 or even more common names, each depending on the region you are in, making it difficult and frustrating to share research with other scientists around the world. It is far easier for scientists to learn one name in Latin for an organism rather than its many names in every language spoken on Earth!