Talk:Barramundi

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[edit] Common Name

I know the Barramundi or Barramunda is a giant pearch. What I am interested in is the Etymology of the word. References state,"Probably of Aboriginal origin."Is there anyone out there that can help me? If was a Latin word I could go places with it, this word is stumping me.

I did a search and found multiple sites claiming "Barramundi" is an Aboriginal word meaning "Large scales," "Large scaled silver fish," "Large scaled river fish," and other things along that vein. However, none was an authoritative linguistic site, so it's probably not appropriate to say that in the article. More to the point, there are unrelated fish (Australian arowanas Scleropages jardinii and S. leichardti) that are also called "Barramundi." I think a disambiguation page might be in order here. Ginkgo100 03:36, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

Barramunid was an aboriginal name that was applied to a number of fish species. The name was conciously adopted in Australia several decades ago as the common name for this fish principly as a marketing tool for angling and the fresh fish food trade. In Australia this name is universally understood to refer to this species and indeed the use of the name for other fish WRT food is illegal in most parts of Australia. The other species mentioned are known as saratoga and gulf saratoga so no confusion is likely to occur. IMO disambiguation is not required. Nick Thorne 14:17, 14 July 2006 (UTC)