Who named the cloud types?

Clouds held a particular fascination for a
young Englishman named Luke Howard (1773-1864). His father had sent him to
grammar school at Burford, a village to the west of London. But Luke was more
interested in the books about nature than in volumes of the Greek and Latin
classics.

Before 1800, observers spoke of clouds only
as "essences" floating in the sky. Clouds had no names and were not
well understood. The nature and behavior of atmospheric gases, such as oxygen
and nitrogen, were just being investigated in the laboratories of Great Britain
and Europe.

In Luke Howard's school years, high-level
dust from volcanic eruptions in Iceland and Japan caused brilliant sunrises and
sunsets. To Howard's logical mind, clouds and complicated halos must be the
result of cause and effect in the natural order. Luke wanted to know more.

At the age of 20, Howard returned to London
to work as a pharmacist. As a hobby, he joined a group of scientists, known then
as "natural philosophers," who called themselves the Askesians
(searchers after knowledge). Each member, in turn, read a scientific paper to
the others. Luke Howard's turn came one night during the winter of 1802-03. His
paper was titled, "On the modification of clouds." In our current
language, modification means classification. This paper was so well received
that it was published and it has become a classic in the history of science.
Today we still use the basic scheme that Howard presented that night and the
Latin names he assigned to the clouds.

Lenticular clouds surrounding Mt. Fuji,
Japan

Howard noted that there are three basic
shapes to clouds:

• 
  

  Heaps of separated cloud masses with flat bottoms and cauliflower
  tops, which he named cumulus (Latin for heap);
  
  



• 
  

  Layers of cloud much wider than they are thick, like a blanket or a
  mattress, which he named stratus (Latin for layer);
  
  



• 
  

  Wispy curls, like a child's hair, which he called cirrus (Latin for
  curl).

To clouds generating precipitation, he gave
the name nimbus (Latin for rain).

Clouds are found in three layers in the lower
atmosphere. Thus, with four types of clouds and three layers, we come up with 12
major cloud types that have evolved from Howard's pioneering work.

Source:
http://nimbo.wrh.noaa.gov/Flagstaff/science/clouds.htm