Ray:

Common names are definitely confusing, and vary from region to region. This is especially true when an organism has a very large distribution range, such as the red squirrel, which ranges all across Canada and most of Alaska, into the Rocky Mountain states, as well as into New England and south to northern Georgia. It has the largest distribution range of the nine species of tree-dwelling squirrels in North America. This is precisely why biologist use "scientific" names, as they eliminate the confusion. However, these same biologists will collect all of the various common names for a given animal across it's distribution range and try to ascertain which common name is the most frequently and most widely used and designate that name as the "official" common name for that particular species. This does not change, and is NOT intended to change, the local common names for the creature. Yes, it is an East/West thing, as well as a North/South thing: not unlike the German language, for which there were 27 different dialects in the early 1900's; each being isolated to it's own particular valley, or the two inter-dependent villages in southeast Mexico where only Spanish is spoken in one and Nahuatl, the language of the Aztecs, in the other. In my earlier note on the squirrel names. I used the '
"official" common names, which may or may not correspond to the names used in your area of the country.

This situation is not unlike that of a skunk; regardless of what you call it, it still stinks!

Cheers,
Frank