From what I can see on Google Books, the story may have been different. There are two uses of “robin” for our bird from 1792. One is The American Geography, by Jedidiah Morse, who lists “Fieldfare of Carolina, or Robin” among American birds. Morse is not what you’d call reliable on natural history. The other is The History of New-Hampshire, volume III (note hyphen), by Jeremy Belknap. Many of his vernacular names look unscientific: “hang bird” (Orchard Oriole?), “little hang-bird” (Northern Parula?), “tom teet” (Black-capped Chickadee), and my favorite, “humility” (Ruddy Turnstone?). My impression is that he got the names from some popular source, maybe conversation, and did his best to match scientific names to them.

There’s also one from 1789: “Cultivation of the Vine”, by Edward Antill, from Transactions of the American Philosophical Society. It’s hard to tell how scientific he’s trying to be about the birds that eat grapes.

I don’t know where any of the authors was born, but it’s pretty clear that Antill had been growing grapes in New Jersey for quite a while.

These sources are hardly proof of anything, but if “robin” really was a popular name, maybe the reason was more ignorance than nostalgia. I think it’s quite possible that many early English settlers had no idea what a Song Thrush or Fieldfare was.

By the way, I trust that for consistency you’re going to propose that the AOU adopt Clay-colored Fieldfare, Rufous-backed Fieldfare, etc. If you do that, I may propose changing them all to ouzels. What do you like for the present American Robin–Northern Rufous-bellied Ouzel?

Jerry Friedman