Congenital vascular anomalies involving relatively superficial sites present wide variations in clinical manifestations. These lesions include the commonly observed capillary or cavernous hemangiomas of the infant and unusual abnormalities of the adult which offer difficult but stimulating problems in their evaluation. A complex terminology has been applied to arteriovenous and venous malformations. One trend has been to describe these lesions only as hemangiomas; on the other hand, a classification has evolved on the basis of descriptive regional involvement or by an eponymic nomenclature. The following review correlates only the most widely used terms, since it is useless to attempt a summary of minor variants. Among the terms used to designate the syndromes produced by congenital arteriovenous communications are arteriovenous fistula, arteriovenous aneurysm, angioma arteriale, pulsating venous aneurysm, angioma cavernosum, arteriovenous varix, aneurysm by anastomosis, cirsoid aneurysm and racemose hemangioma. These have arisen largely through clinical descriptions, but there is some