Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon
The genus "Arremon" was erected in 1816 by the French ornithologist Louis Jean Pierre Vieillot in his "Analyse d'une Nouvelle Ornithologie Élémentaire" to accommodate the pectoral sparrow ("Arremon taciturnus"). The name is from the Ancient Greek "arrhēmōn" meaning "silent" or "without speech". The pectoral sparrow had been given the French name "L'Oiseau Silencieux" by the polymath Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon in 1779.