The formal system of naming species is called binominal nomenclature (especially in zoological circles), binary nomenclature (especially in botanical circles), or the binomial classification system. The essence of it is that each species name is in (modern scientific) Latin and has two parts, so that it is popularly known as the Latin name of the species, although this terminology is avoided by biologists and philologists, who prefer the term scientific name. Instead of using the full seven-category system (kingdom-phylum-class-order-family-genus-species) in naming an organism, Karl von Linne chose to use a two-word naming system. He adopted the binominal nomenclature scheme, using only the genus name and the specific name or epithet which together form the species name. For example, humans belong to genus Homo and their specific name is sapiens. Humans as a species are thus classified as Homo sapiens. The first letter of the first name, the genus, is always capitalized, while that of the second is not, even when derived from a proper noun such as the name of a person or place.

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