The Global Names Architecture (GNA) is a system of databases, programs, and web services - a cyberinfrastructure - that can be used to discover, index, organize and interconnect on-line information about organisms and their names.
When a thing has a name, that name becomes an anchor around which we can collect our observations and 
knowledge. The use of names as a framework for knowledge of biology began with the system of scientific names introduced by Linnaeus about 250 years ago. His approach was to use latin binomials, such as Ba humbugi (it's a snail), Pompholyxophrys punicea (a microbe) or Homo sapiens (a self-aware biped). This system is still used for almost all organisms. Names are included in almost every statement and database about organisms. In the e-world, names are metadata which can be used to discover and organize information about organisms.
There are an estimated about 2.2 million species (1.9 million living, and the remainder known only as fossils), with the number of described species growing by about 20,000 per year The species are placed in an estimated 470,000 genera; and there are likely to be about 5-7 million species names that are code compliant. At this time GNI is aware of 20 million namestrings for groups of organisms, most of which are minor spelling variants of other names.
The Global Names Architecture is a communal open environment that manages names so that we can manage information about organisms and serve the needs of biologists.