It is believed that a name should be simply a denotive word, and that no
advantage can accrue from a descriptive or connotive title. It is
therefore desirable to have the names as simple as possible, consistent
with other and more important considerations. For this reason it has
been found impracticable to recognize as family names designations based
on several distinct terms, such as descriptive phrases, and words
compounded from two or more geographic names. Such phrases and compound
words have been rejected.

There are many linguistic families in North America, and in a number of
them there are many tribes speaking diverse languages. It is important,
therefore, that some form should be given to the family name by which it
may be distinguished from the name of a single tribe or language. In
many cases some one language within a stock has been taken as the type
and its name given to the entire family; so that the name of a language
and that of the stock to which it belongs are identical. This is
inconvenient and leads to confusion. For such reasons it has been
decided to give each family name the termination “an” or “ian.”

Conforming to the principles thus enunciated, the following rules have
been formulated:

I. The law of priority relating to the nomenclature of the
systematic philology of the North American tribes shall not extend
to authors whose works are of date anterior to the year 1836.

II. The name originally given by the founder of a linguistic group
to designate it as a family or stock of languages shall be
permanently retained to the exclusion of all others.