British ethnologist Robert Gordon Latham originally used the term "Costanoan" to refer to the linguistically similar but ethnically diverse Native American tribes in the San Francisco Bay Area. The term "Ohlone" has been used in place of "Costanoan" since the early 1900s by some tribal groups and, in 1967, American anthropologist Clinton Hart Merriam first published the term "Ohlonean" to refer to the Costanoan peoples. Since then, the term "Ohlone" has been adopted by most ethnographers, historians, and writers of popular literature.