The souffia belongs to the genus
Telestes, a name which was coined by
Charles Lucien Bonaparte who did not explain its
etymology, although it may be from
teléstēs, the Greek for "completer" or "finisher", and if that is thecase then the allusion is not obvious. in 1877
David Starr Jordan suggested that the name been derived
téleios which means "spotless", i.e. without blemish but nothing in Bonaparte's description supports this. Telesetes is also a name, with a murdered 8th century B. C. E. king of Corinth and a 5th century C. E. Greek poet bearing the name. The
specific name souffia is the French
vernacular name for this fish. ==Distribution and habitat==