What justifies as a "Named Coral"?
My personal opinion on the subject would be that only corals that have lineage keep the name and pass it on. Making it unique to other s of it's species. Using a name from a coral that already has lineage in order to name an unknown coral is falsifying the identification. Making an impostor. Which can be confusing later on when it turns out it was not that named coral in the first place.
When there are so many different species in each genus of stony coral, it seems sloppy to use names instead of species unless the name refers to a certain strain from a certain original colony.
Just my 2cents.
We'll see how this goes.
I know there are plenty of opinions on the subject and how much certain things are worth. This will probably be a disaster on a tang-policean scale, but whatever.
I would tend to agree with you that a named coral should be traced back to an original source, but in reality, if it's the same appearance, that can be difficult to prove, simply because many people are not really dedicated to keeping such records. Calling them impostors, at that point, is about as meaningless as naming them in the first place, as, like you said, they all belong under their specific species name to begin with.
That being said, I don't think a lot of people know what species to call these corals that are widely traded online and withing our own local communities. This includes me.
I think it would be good to be able to refer to them by species name, regardless of whatever the common name they are given. I thought making a thread with pictures as a cross reference might make it easier to refer to commonly traded corals by, and promote the use of, the correct species name.