Unlike most other languages, including English - which uses a more homogeneous term (gull) to designate these birds - French makes a nomenclature distinction between mouette and goéland. To simplify, in the French standardized nomenclature, a goéland would be a large mouette. The term goéland is borrowed from the Breton gwelan or gouelañ, which means to cry and describes the particular song of these birds.