13, see text Sterna is a genus of terns in the bird family Laridae.

The genus used to encompass most "white" terns indiscriminately, but mtDNA sequence comparisons have recently determined that this arrangement is paraphyletic.

It is now restricted to the typical medium-sized white terns occurring near-globally in coastal regions.

[1] The genus Sterna was introduced in 1758 by the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus in the tenth edition of his Systema Naturae.

[3] Sterna is derived from Old English "stearn" which appears in the poem The Seafarer; a similar word was used to refer to terns by the Frisians.