The scientific name is used to name an organism to avoid misunderstandings caused when using the common name of organisms. An example of a scientific name is Homo sapiens to refer to modern human beings. It is written in italics and in which the initial letter of the genus name is capitalized.

Every species known to science has a name, referred to as a scientific name or binomen. For example, Homo sapiens is the scientific name for humans. There are two main functions of these Latin names: to identify a species and indicate its evolutionary relationships with other organisms.