Who proposed the scientific name Elephas maximus in 1758?

Carl Linnaeus proposed the scientific name Elephas maximus in 1758.

Linnaeus introduced the name in the 10th edition of Systema Naturae, the landmark work that established the foundations of modern zoological naming. Elephas is the genus name, while maximus means “largest” in Latin. The combination is the scientific name still used for the Asian elephant.

Linnaeus worked from a mixture of earlier descriptions, illustrations and specimens, rather than from a modern standardized field study. Some material available to him was misidentified or represented African elephants, while a major influence was a 1693 description of an elephant skeleton by the English naturalist John Ray. Later taxonomic research connected the species’ type material with Hansken, a famous female Asian elephant from Sri Lanka that toured Europe in the seventeenth century.

Other names came later for regional populations. Georges Cuvier proposed Elephas indicus in 1798, and Coenraad Jacob Temminck named the Sumatran form in 1847. The 1758 Linnaean name has priority, which is why Linnaeus—not Darwin, Matschie or Cuvier—is the canonical answer.