Renaming true dragons

Like elemental and giant, the term "dragon" in the game rules refers to both a monster type and a monster entry. The rules acknowledge that this distinction is needlessly confusing, so I would prefer to replace it. (tl;dr I labeled the iconic articulate hoarding dragon "zmey", the Russian word for that exact concept.) UPDATE 3/15/2018: decided to use "tarragon" instead. UPDATE 9/19/2018: decided to use drake instead, taking after the original firedrake.

Dragonkin in World of WarCraft

The original Rules Cyclopedia made a distinction between "dragons" and "dragon-kin," which later editions glossed over. The 3.x rules changed this to "true dragons" and "everything else." The 3.x Draconomicon adopted the inaccurate "greater dragon" and "lesser dragon." These distinction are purely an OCD game convention and do not exist in folklore, mythology, or heraldry, where dragons and similar creatures are simply called dragons. Even the hydra is considered a multi-headed dragon.

True dragons in 5e are significantly less powerful compared their 3e incarnation. In 3e, all chromatic and metallic dragons could change shape at will and cast spells as sorcerers. In 5e, they may only cast a handful of spells in an optional sidebar; only ancient metallic dragons, adult bronze dragons, and adult silver dragons may change shape. Indeed, they are much closer to how all the other dragons are portrayed. If desired, it would be easy to treat the statistics for chromatic and metallic dragons may be treated as generic dragons rather than a distinct race of their own.

Dragons in D&D have connotations of being intelligent and greedy, based almost entirely on Smaug from The Hobbit with some influence from mythology and fairy tales (such as kidnapping princesses and fighting knights). In folklore, the Slavic dragon or "zmey" has the exact same connotations as the D&D dragon: they are intelligent, obsessed with treasure and prone to kidnapping maidens. Therefore, "zmey" makes a perfect replacement for "true dragon" in game terminology.

Dragonkin as a Player Character Race

If this name change is adopted, it has implications for the names and classification of other dragons and dragon-kin.

• The distinction between true dragons, false dragons, dragon-kin, etc no longer applies in the fluff or rules. The monsters previously labeled dragon-kin, such as the behir, chimera, dragon turtle, dragonne, jabberwock, pseudodragon and wyvern, are now considered dragons.
• This frees up the term "dragon-kin" to refers to creatures related to dragons which are not themselves typed as dragons. For example, (dragon-kin) may be a tag applied to humanoids with draconic heritage.
• The name of the pseudodragon (and the "drakes" in additional bestiaries) no longer makes sense, since it is a real dragon and not a false dragon. Therefore, a logical rename would be "dragonet" (a real word meaning "a small dragon"). Fun fact: this rename was also used in d20 Past.
• The 3pp Tome of Beasts previously introduced a three-headed dragon named zmey. Taking a name from Pathfinder Bestiary, I would rename this dragon to the gorynych (if male) and khala (if female).