Who names their corals?

[danny zubot]

I just wanted to throw this out there because it's recently just come to mind. Where do all of these names of various corals come from? I'm not talking about the scientific names either, I talking about the some times wierd and off the wall "common" names that they sometimes acquire. For example, zoanthids called "Eagle Eyes" or "Purple People Eaters" or "Highlighter Milli".

So where do these names come from? Did someone just decide to call a coral they bought at a LFS something bizzar, and it just stuck? Kind of like a nick name? I was recently asked if a certain coral that I've fragged and sold a lot of over the years, had a cool name. There are certainly enough of the coral frags floating around now to warrant a cool name. But I got it from a guy who got it from a guy, so I'm not about to lay a personal claim to it. Although it would be kind of cool.

What can anyone tell me about this? I'm just curious.

Danny