The template is to be used only from within {{Speciesbox}}. It has two functions: to return {{Italic title}} if appropriate, and to return a name for the taxobox.

{{Speciesbox/name|name|taxon|genus|species|pagenamebase|italic_title}}

If pagenamebase is the full name of the species or the name of the genus (with any disambiguator or qualifier stripped off) then {{Italic title}} is returned (unless italic_title is no).

If name is not specified, pagenamebase is returned as the name, italicized if appropriate.