As the possibility of finding life elsewhere besides on Earth seems to be increasing, it caused me to wonder what sort of classification system or taxonomy we would have to create. Would all species from that discovery onwards have to carry a designation of, say, “Homo sapiens (Earth)” as opposed to “Homo sapiens (Mars)” or what? How would we differentiate in our nomenclature between Earthly species and non-Earthly?
Well, they wouldn’t be “homo sapiens anything” unless they were damn similar to us, including an unlikely evolutionary connection. We’d probably need a new classification above “kingdom,” to identify planetary origins.
What’s wrong with using the names they use for themselves?
As Larry Niven once put it, L. L. would be more likely to be able to successfully mate with an ear of corn than with Superman. Even if aliens turn out to look kind of sort of like us, they’ll be more distantly related, if at all, than anything on the planet.
We’d come up with a system of nomenclature that best represents whatever reality we find on that planet. Without knowing what we find, it’s kind of pointless to speculate.
Now that I think of it, why do you believe that we will be the ones on the outside of the bottle of formalin, doing all the naming?
What if they communicate by farting?
In Rainbow Mars, Niven posts that Edgar Rice Burroughs’s Green Martians, being of insect descent, would breathe through tracheae in their abdomens. To talk, they would swallow air and then talk by means of a sustained belch.
We give them human equivalents.
“Greetings Madam President. My name is His Excellency Whoo, Boy. I would like to introduce my assistant, the Honorable What Died Inside You. We are replacing Her Excellency **What the Hell Have You Been Eating **and the Honorable **My God, My Eyes are Watering **, who have returned to our Homeworld of Silent But Deadly.”
Since I doubt there can be a “correct” answer to this, let’s move it to IMHO.
samclem Moderator, General Questions
Fuzzy fuzzy Holloway.
Prawns? 
Maybe we could import some back to Earth and keep them in a shanty-style “district” of some sort also?
How is this different from any other Greek House undergraduate student?
I think we’d just use the current nomenclature, expanded. Probably come up with a “-form” system, indexed by planet origin, like “Areogens Archeabacterioform Misterus dibblicus” for a Martian Archea, or “Orionigens Mammiliform Verdihomo Hotti” for Orion slave girls.
Then we could have teen agers communicate with them.