© Balbach & Fritzenkötter

About the Network

This network brings together scholars from all countries who are engaged in research on personal names. Scholars in many different disciplines around the world are researching names, but often they hardly know about each other and their research literature is difficult to access in other countries.

This is where the network comes in. Scientists around the world can

  • get in touch with each other,
  • exchange information about who is doing which research in which country,
  • exchange news about international names research and conferences,
  • discuss ideas and methodological problems and
  • list and upload their publications (coming soon) and make them accessible to all international researchers by adding English keywords and summaries.

In this way, each individual names researcher can gain more visibility, network with others, exchange ideas and in the best case even start a joint international names research project.

The network was founded in 2024 by Anna-Maria Balbach. It continues and expands the “People's Names Research Network (PNRN)”, which was launched by Jane Pilcher in 2021.Researchers from all disciplines are invited to network and exchange ideas.

If you would like to join the network or learn more about it, please write to Dr. Anna-Maria Balbach.

Looking forward to welcome new members!

Our Members

 

© Comfort Iseoluwa Adeleke-Adeniji

Comfort Iseoluwa Adeleke-Adeniji, Redeemer's University, Nigeria

I am an onomastician and a sociolinguist with focus on African drama texts. I love to delve into the thematic and sociolinguistic imports of characters' names in relation to the textual and extra-textual contexts of African plays. I am interested in discovering the sociolinguistic context of literary names.

 

 

 

 

  • Publications:

    Adeleke-Adeniji, C. & Odebode, I. (2024). A Sociolinguistic Study of Characters’ Names in Ahmed Yerima’s Ikudeti . In Humanus Discourse, Volume 4 (4) 1-14. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/381660446

    Odebode, I., Ayodeji, S., & Adeleke-Adeniji, C. (2024). Biblical names in selected plays of Wole Soyinka: A sociolinguistic study. In Onomástica desde América Latina 5, janeiro-dezembro, 1-26. http://doi.org/10.48075/odal.v5i1.33080

    Adeleke-Adeniji, C. & Odebode, I. (2024). Eventonym as Characteronym: An Ethnographic Study of the Protagonist’s Name in Ahmed Yerima’s Ikudeti. https://www.sirenjournals.com

© Aehnlich

Barbara Aehnlich, University of Bremen, Germany

I am a lecturer in German linguistics specializing in the history of the German language at the University of Bremen. As a historical linguist, I have also been working in the field of name research for a long time. For my dissertation, I wrote a thesis on the field names of Thuringia and carried out name studies on various topics, such as the naming of pets by children or the names of utra-fan groups in soccer. I am currently in charge of the digitization of the Thuringian field name archive and the project “Field names as a bridge between society and science”. In the field of personal names, I have carried out contrastive studies on the assignment of names with Georgia and investigated the pragmaonomastic implications of the naming of historical female names.

 

 

 

  • Publications:

    Kein „alltäglicher Gruppenname“? – Namengebung bei Ultrafangruppen (mit Tim Köring), in: Ewald, Petra / Pohl, Inge (Hg.): Inoffizielle Eigennamen – Onomastische Studien (Sprache – System und Tätigkeit, Bd. 76), Berlin u.a. 2024, S. 305-338.

    Tradition neu gestalten – Digitalisierung und Bürgerwissenschaft im Thüringischen Flurnamenprojekt (gemeinsam mit David Brosius), Beiträge zur Namenforschung 59, 2024, S. 159-180.

    Vom Zettel zum Datensatz. Flurnamenforschung in Thüringen (mit Petra Kunze), in: Smolarski, René; Carius, Hendrikje; Prell, Martin (Hg.): Citizen Science in den Geschichtswissenschaften. Methodische Perspektive oder perspektivlose Methode? (DH&CS Schriften des Netzwerks für digitale Geisteswissenschaften und Citizen Science 3), Göttingen 2023, S. 125-141.

    „… ab morgen nennen wir uns Ultras …“ Die Benennungen von Ultrafangruppen in den deutschen Fußballligen (mit Tim Köring), in: Namenkundliche Informationen (NI) 114 (2022), hrsg. von Michael Prinz, Gerhard Rampl und Inga Siegfried-Schupp, 169-202.

    Rufnamen kontrastiv: ein deutsch-georgischer Vergleich (mit Manana Bakradze, Miranda Gobiani, Jakob Wünsch); Zeitschrift Linguistische Treffen in Wrocław, vol. 21, 2022 (I), S. 17-33. (DOI: https://doi.org/10.23817/lingtreff.21-1.)

    Das Thüringer Flurnamenportal – Ein Werkstattbericht, in: Namenkundliche Informationen (NI) 113 (2021), hrsg. von Michael Prinz und Inga Siegfried-Schupp, S. 35-52.

    Kulturelle Spezifik der deutschen und georgischen Vornamen (gemeinsam mit Manana Bakradze, Miranda Gobiani, Diana Schluchtmann und Jakob Wünsch), in: Hengst, Karlheinz (Hg.): Namenforschung und Namenberatung (Onomastica Lipsiensia 14), Leipzig 2021, S. 47-69.

    Sozio- und pragmaonomastische Implikationen der Benennungspraxis am Beispiel der Christiana von Goethe (gemeinsam mit Anja Stehfest), in: Namenkundliche Informationen 107/108 (2016), herausgegeben von Susanne Baudisch et al., Leipzig, S. 369-396.

    Minka und Findus oder Helga und Brigitte – Individualbenennungen von Haustieren durch Kinder und Jugendliche (gemeinsam mit Elisabeth Witzenhausen), in: Beiträge zur Namenforschung, Band 50, Heft 1/2, 2015, S. 191-218.

    Flurnamen Thüringens. Der westliche Saale-Holzland-Kreis, baar, Hamburg 2012.

© Terhi_Ainiala

Terhi Ainiala, University of Helsinki, Finland

In the fields of onomastics, the most central areas for me are socio-onomastics and folk onomastics. I’m especially interested in identity construction through naming, social and situational name variation and the various functions of names. Furthermore, the stances and perceptions towards various names are fascinating. Personally, I have studied place names but also personal names. As a supervisor for several doctoral and master thesis I’ve been involved with many kinds of personal names, both official and unofficial, both historical and current.

  • Publications:

    Voutilainen, Eero – Visakko, Tomi – Sjöblom, Paula – Hakala, Ulla – Ainiala, Terhi
    2024: Place branding and translocal chronotopes in Finnish municipality slogans. –
    Language and Communication 94, 56–68. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.langcom.2023.12.003
     
    Ainiala, Terhi – Jokela, Salla – Tarvainen, Jenny –Jantunen, Jarmo H. 2023: Geographic
    imagination and urban-rural binary in online discourses related to the capital region of
    Finland: A corpus onomastic study of Helsinki, Vantaa and Espoo. – Nordic Journal of
    Socio-Onomastics, 3, 13–44. https://doi.org/10.59589/noso.32023.14401
     
    Jantunen, Jarmo H. – Ainiala, Terhi – Jokela, Salla – Tarvainen, Jenny 2022: Mapping
    Digital Discourses of the Capital Region of Finland: Combining Onomastics, CADS, and
    GIS. – Names. A Journal of Onomastics 70:1, 20–39.
    https://doi.org/10.5195/names.2022.2289
     
    Ainiala, Terhi – Olsson, Pia 2021: Places of power: Naming of affective places. – Nordic
    Journal of Socio-Onomastics, 1, 9–38. https://doi.org/10.59589/noso.12021.14713
     
    Ameel, Lieven – Ainiala, Terhi 2018: Toponyms as Prompts for Presencing Place –
    Making Oneself at Home in Kjell Westö’s Helsinki. – Scandinavian Studies 90(2), 195–
    210. https://doi.org/10.5406/scanstud.90.2.0195
     
    Ainiala, Terhi – Lappalainen, Hanna – Nyström, Samu 2016: Slang name or official
    name? Suburb names as mirrors of urban identities in eastern Helsinki. –
    Yhdyskuntasuunnittelu 54, 41–59.
     
    Ainiala, Terhi 2016: Names in Society. – Hough, Carole (ed.), Oxford Handbook of
    Names and Naming. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 371–381.
    https://academic.oup.com/edited-volume/34398
     
    Ainiala, Terhi – Östman, Jan-Ola (eds.) 2017: Socio-onomastics. The pragmatics of
    names. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.275
    Ainiala, Terhi – Saarikivi, Janne (eds.) 2017: Personal name systems in Finnic and
    beyond. Uralica Helsingiensia 12. Helsinki. https://www.sgr.fi/fi/items/show/193
     
    Ainiala, Terhi – Saarelma, Minna – Sjöblom, Paula 2012: Names in Focus. An
    Introduction to Finnish Onomastics. Studia Fennica Linguistica. 287 s. Helsinki: Finnish
    Literature Society. https://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/3212

© Fatemeh Akbari

Fatemeh Akbari, Academy of Persian Language and Literature (APLL), Austria

Names are living entities, as are societies. They are born, grow, weaken, and occasionally disappear. Throughout their existence, they interact with each other. The influence of names and societies on each other, particularly from socio-political and terminological perspectives, lies at the heart of my onomastic studies.

I am an onomastician, sociolinguist, and terminologist. Currently, I contribute as a non-executive member of the International Council of Onomastic Sciences (ICOS) Board (responsible for international collaborations, with Dr. Peter Jordan), a member of Terminology Working Group, and a member of the ICOS Congress 2027 Organising Committee. Additionally, I serve as the head of the Terminology Committee of the APLL; and a sociolinguist on the project Investigating Iranian Surnames in the USA (sponsored by the Persian Heritage Foundation), among others.

  • Further information

    Websites:

    https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7898-9096

    https://www.linkedin.com/in/fatemeh-akbari-963b3216

  • Publications:

    2025. (with M.R. Razavi and B. Fathi) “Definition: A Function-Style Classification” (submitted for publication)

    2023. “A Look at Onomastics in Western World”. Iranian Journal of Sociolinguistics, 6(4):13-25. https://sociolinguistics.journals.pnu.ac.ir/article_10553.html?lang=en

    2023. “The Power of Names and Naming”. The 1st. International Congress on Social Sciences, 20-21 October 2023, KTO Karatay University, Konya, Turkey

    2023. “Names in Politics”. Invited speaker, International Council of Onomastic Sciences’ Summer School, 21-25 August 2023. Glasgow, University of Glasgow

    2022. “International Collaboration on Onomastics”. Keynote speech (with Prof. Dr. Peter Jordan). The Second National Conference on Onomastic Studies in Iran, 23 February 2022, Tehran, Linguistic Society of Iran

    2021. “Names in Protest Actions”. The 27th International Congress of Onomastic Sciences, 22–27 August 2021, Cracow, Poland

    2020. Iran’s Language Planning to Confront English Abbreviations. n.p.: Springer International Publishing. https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9783030353827

    2019. Immigrants’ Business Naming: Persian Restaurants and Supermarkets in Vienna’s Linguistic Landscape. Onoma (Journal of the International Council of Onomastic Sciences), 54, pp. 99–117.

    2019. “Persian Commercial Names and Appealing Strategies” In Onomastic Studies. Tehran: Neveeseh Parsi, pp. 13–34.

© Emilia Aldrin

Emilia Aldrin, Halmstad University, Sweden

My research interests centre around social positioning and identity creation through naming. I have studied for example parents choice of first names for their children as an act of identity, name choices in multilingual families, gendered patterns in name innovations, teenagers positioning through usernames, the effects of name based stereotypes in school assessment, and name use in educational materials as representation of society.

 

 

 

  • Publications:

    Vad säger väl ett namn? Reflektioner kring teorin om markerade namn utifrån exemplet etniska konnotationer till förnamn. [What’s in a name? Reflections on the theory of name markedness based on the example of ethnic connotations to first names] In: Namn och gränser. Rapport från den sjuttonde nordiska namnforskarkongressen den 8–11 juni 2021 (NORNA-rapporter 100), edited by Väinö Syrjälä, Terhi Ainiala, and Pamela Gustavsson. Uppsala 2023, p. 57–79. https://norna.org/sites/default/files/rapporter/NORNA100.pdf
     
    Representing Sweden: A diachronic study of names and illustrations in Swedish textbooks from the 20th and 21st centuries. In: Beiträge zur Namenforschung 56 (2021), p. 63–78.
     
    Naming, Identity, and Social Positioning in Teenagers’ Everyday Mobile Phone Interaction. In: Names: A journal of onomastics 67:1 (2019), p. 30–39. https://doi.org/10.1080/00277738.2017.1415523
     
    Assessing names? Effects of name-based stereotypes on teachers’ evaluation of pupils’ texts. In: Names: A journal of onomastics. 65:1 (2017), p. 3–14. https://doi.org/10.1080/00277738.2016.1223116
     
    Creating identities through the choice of first name. In: Socio-onomastics. Ed. by: Terhi Ainiala & Jan-Ola Östman. Amsterdam 2017, p. 45–68.
     
    Vad säger mitt namn om mig? En folkonomastisk studie av vuxnas syn på relationen mellan namn och identitet. [What does my name say about me? A folk onomastic study of adults’ views of the relationship between name and identity] In: NORNA-rapporter 96. Namn som kjelder. Rapport frå Den sekstande nordiske namne­forskar­kongressen på Jæren folkehøgskole, Kleppe 8.–11. juni 2016. Red. av Tom Schmidt & Inge Særheim. Uppsala (2017), p. 21–34.
     
    Names and identity. In: The Oxford Handbook of names and naming. Ed. by Carole Hough. Oxford (2016), p. 382–394.
     
    Att skapa kön. Könsmönster och könsroller i nyskapade förnamn. [Creating gender. Gendered patterns and gender roles in newly created first names] In: NORNA-rapporter 92. Innovationer i namn och namnmönster. Rapport från NORNA:s 43 symposium i Halmstad 6–8 november 2013. Red: Emilia Aldrin, Linnea Gustafsson, Maria Löfdahl och Catarina Röjder. Uppsala (2015), p. 36–51.
     
    Namnval som social handling. Val av förnamn och samtal om förnamn bland föräldrar i Göteborg 2007–2009. [Naming as a social act. Choice of first names and conversations about first names among parents in Göteborg 2007-2009] Uppsala (2011). https://www.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:402591/FULLTEXT01.pdf
     
    2009: The choice of first names as a social resource and act of identity among multilingual families in contemporary Sweden. In: Names in multi-lingual, multi-cultural and multi-ethnic contact. Proceedings of The 23rd International Congress of Onomastic Sciences, August 17–22, 2008. York (2009), p. 86–92.

© Dr. Anna-Maria Balbach

Anna-Maria Balbach, University of Muenster, Germany

E-Mail: Anna.Balbach@uni-muenster.de

I am a linguist of German philology studying the interdependence of language and society, culture and especially religion in diachronic and synchronic perspective. I am interested in onomastics of personal names and their influence by these external factors. Who chooses what names for what reasons at what times? What do personal names, especially given names, tell us about a person’s values and various affiliations within his or her society and culture? So far, I have studied German given names of the early modern period,  African-American names and their development from 1600 to the present, as well as personal names and gender.

Currently, I am planning a research project on given names in Europe and their historical and contemporary development.

  • Publications:

    Given Names and Gender: An Initial Comparison between Germany and Other European Countries. In: Sociolinguistic Studies (2025), 25 pages (accepted).

    Noah and Luca, Sofia and Mia: Current First Name Trends in Europe. In: Linguistica Lettica (2024), p. 76–95.

    Personal Names and Naming in Europe. First Insights into Variabilities and Similarities. In: Beiträge zur Namenforschung 58/4 (2023), p. 355–392.

    Names, Naming (People), Christianity - Modern Europe. In: Encyclopedia of the Bible and Its Reception (EBR), vol. 20. Berlin, Boston 2022, p. 699–706.

    „Rose, formerly called Grace“. Fremd- und selbstinitiierter Namenwechsel afro-amerikanischer Sklaven im 18. und 19. Jahrhundert. In: Beiträge zur Namenforschung 56 (2021), p. 79–104.

    Caesar, Jack, and Cuffee: African-American fugitive slave names in the 17th to the 19th century. In: ONOMA 55 (2021), p. 205–227.

    Die Scrabble-Score-Methode zur Messung sprachlicher Komplexität – Ein Test anhand von 90.000 Rufnamen aus dem SOEP. In: SOEPpapers 990 (2018), p. 1–14.

    Von Agustin über Tom zu DaShawn – Zur Geschichte und Entwicklung so genannter ‚Black Names‘ in den USA. Teil 3: Von der Mitte des 20. Jahrhunderts bis heute In: Beiträge zur Namenforschung 3 (2018), p. 283–338. Abstract.

    Von Agustin über Tom zu DaShawn – Zur Geschichte und Entwicklung so genannter ‚Black Names‘ in den USA. Teil 2: Vom Ende der Sklaverei bis ins frühe 20. Jahrhundert. In: Beiträge zur Namenforschung 2 (2018), p. 133–185. Abstract.

    Von Agustin über Tom zu DaShawn – Zur Geschichte und Entwicklung so genannter ‚Black Names‘ in den USA. Teil 1. In: Beiträge zur Namenforschung 1 (2018), p. 1–45. Abstract.

    Name – Geschlecht – Individuum. Konfessioneller Einfluss auf die Vornamengebung im frühneuzeitlichen Bayerisch-Schwaben. In: Beiträge zur Namenforschung 2/2014, p. 127–163.

    Jakob, Johann oder Joseph? - Frühneuzeitliche Vornamen im Streit der Konfessionen. In: Konfession und Sprache in der Frühen Neuzeit. Interdisziplinäre Perspektiven. Hrsg. von Jürgen Macha, Anna-Maria Balbach und Sarah Horstkamp. Münster 2012, p. 11–30.

© Ivona Barešová

Ivona Barešová, Palacký University Olomouc, Czech Republic

I primarily focus on various aspects of Japanese given names, including the recent trend of gender-neutral names. I enjoy exploring how names reflect the period in which they are chosen, capturing parental values, needs, and aspirations shaped by broader societal changes. Recently, I have also conducted comparative analyses of Japanese and Taiwanese names and naming practices. I greatly welcome this initiative and am eager to collaborate with scholars working on similar themes in other cultures, as well as to explore new directions in the study of names and identity.

 

  • Publications:

    Barešová, I., K. Machů, and M. Šturdík. 2024. Contemporary Japanese Gender-Neutral Names from the Perspective of Their Bearers. Japanese Studies. https://doi.org/10.1080/10371397.2024.2430558

    Barešová, I., Nakaya, T., Matlach, V. 2024. Gender-specific Features in Contemporary Japanese Names. Digital Scholarship in the Humanities 39(2): 467–484. https://doi.org/10.1093/llc/fqae022

    Barešová, I. 2023. Born in the Reiwa Era: The Reflection of Contemporary Events in Japanese Given Names. In: Bijak, U., Swoboda, P., Walkowiak, J. B. Onomastics in Interaction With Other Branches of Science. Volume 2, 49–66. https://doi.org/10.4467/K7446.46/22.23.17269

    Barešová, I., and P. Janda. 2023. Tradition and Change: Naming Practices in Contemporary Japan and Taiwan. In F. Kraus, K. Šamajová, R. Westlake, and B. Ferklová. Continuity and change in Asia. 393–411. Olomouc: Palacký University Press.

    Barešová, I., and P. Janda. 2022. Different, Yet Similar: Given Names of Contemporary Japanese and Taiwanese Young Women. Acta Onomastica 63(1): 7–36.

    Barešová, I., and M. Pikhart. 2020. Going by an English name: The Adoption and Use of English Names by Taiwanese Young Adults. Social Sciences 9(4): 60. https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci9040060

    Barešová, I. 2020. Name-based Nickname Formation among Japanese Junior High School Students. Acta Onomastica 61(2): 267–286.

    Barešová, I. 2020. Boy or Girl? The Rise of Non-Gender-Specific Names in Japan. Silva Iaponicarum 56–59: 26–41. 10.12775/sijp.2020.56-59.2

    Barešová, I. 2019. Our Second Son Is Number One: Numbers in Recent Japanese Given Names. Investigationes Linguisticae 43: 1–14. doi: 10.14746/il.2019.43.1.

    Barešová, I. 2016. Japanese Given Names: A Window into Contemporary Japanese Society. Olomouc: Palacký University Press. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/317527958_Japanese_Given_Names_A_Window_Into_Contemporary_Japanese_Society

Katrine Bechsgaard, University of California, Berkeley, USA / University of Copenhagen, Denmark

My research focuses on sociolinguistics and socioonomastics – on how language and names are used in and reflect contemporary society. I am interested in naming practices, especially in terms of how name choices are related to identity. I have studied Danish parents’ choice of first names for children, written a book examining cultural, sociological, linguistic, and psychological aspects of naming, and my current project focuses on surname choices, family practices, gender, and identity.

© Gerrit Bloothooft

Gerrit Bloothoft, Utrecht University, Netherlands

The naming of a child is a personal act of identity. How this choice relates to tradition, social group, fashion and time (as an example of cultural evolution) has my deepest interest, and I try to unravel this by the analysis of Dutch naming from about 1790 onwards. This is possible on the basis of full population data for the Netherlands of given names, date, place and country of birth, with added information from 19th century  marriage records. This allows for unprecedented analytical research. Most of this information can be accessed online at the Dutch Corpus of Given Names which I founded in 2009. Even though I am retired now, I continue my research as guest of Utrecht University, the Netherlands, and the Meertens Institute of the Royal Academy of sciences.

  • Publications:

    Bloothooft, G. (2002), 'Naming and subcultures in The Netherlands' (.pdf), Proceedings International Conference of Onomastic Sciences, Uppsala, eds E. Brylla and M. Wahlberg, part 2, pp 53-62 (published 2006)

    Bloothooft, G., van Nifterick, E. en Gerritzen, D. (2004), 'Over voornamen - hoe Nederland aan z'n voornamen komt', Het Spectrum, Utrecht, SBN 90 274 8444 9, 364 pp.  [On first names - how The Netherlands gets its first names]

    Bloothooft, G. and L. Groot (2008), 'Name clustering on the basis of parental preferences', Names 56:3, 111-163 (Maney Publishing)

    Bloothooft, G. and D. Onland (2011), 'Socioeconomic determinants of first names', Names 59, 1, 25-41. 

    Bloothooft, G. and Schraagen, M. (2011), 'Name fashion dynamics and social class', Proceedings of the XXIV-International Conference of Onomastic Sciences, Barcelona, pp 271-282.

    Bloothooft, G. and Darlu, P. (2013), 'Evaluation of the Bayesian Method to Derive Migration Patterns from Changes in Surname Distributions over Time', Human Biology 85(3), 537 - 551.

    Bloothooft, G., Christen, P., Mandemakers, K., Schraagen, M. (Eds.) (2015), Population Reconstruction, Springer, Switzerland, ISBN 978-3-319-19883-5

    Bloothooft, G. and Onland, D. (2016), 'Multiple first names in the Netherlands (1760-2014)', Names, 64:1, 3-18, DOI: 10.1080/00277738.2016.1118860

    Bloothooft, G. (2021), 'De machtswet van de voornamen', in Nicoline van der Sijs, Lauren Fonteijn en Marten van der Meulen (red.), Wat gebeurt er in het Nederlands?, Sterck & De Vreese, Gorredijk, pp160-166. [The power law of given names]

    Bloothooft, G. and Onland, D. (2023). Online Exploration of Given Name Popularity in the Netherlands since 1790. In U. Bijak, P. Swoboda, & J. B. Walkowiak (Eds.), Proceedings of the 27th International Congress of Onomastic Sciences: Onomastics in Interaction With Other Branches of Science. Volume 2: Anthroponomastics (pp. 67–84). Kraków: Jagiellonian University Press. https://doi.org/10.4467/K7446.46/22.23.17270

    At www.neerlandistiek.nl 114 publications in Dutch can be found on various aspects of baby naming in the Netherlands (published since 2018). Also visit my personal website (in Dutch)  www.gerritbloothooft.nl  > Publicaties for a full overview.

Jane Bryan, University of Warwick, UK

I am a Reader of Law at the University of Warwick and the Academic Lead of our Community Values Education Programme. I am interested in dialogue in several contexts: as a way to develop reflective teaching practice through peer dialogue, as a way to engage students in their learning through supporting the student voice and as a way to resolve conflicts through mediation and restorative approaches. My interest in the importance of names and correct pronunciation arises in part from my wider attempts to remove barriers to dialogue that can arise in the teaching space and beyond.

© Luis Ramon Campo Yumar

Luis Ramón Campo Yumar, Universidad Central "Marta Abreu" de Las Villas (UCLV)

E-Mail: lcampo@uclv.cu; luisrcy92@gmail.com

I am interested in the motivations and referents for the selection of first names in Cuba, as well as the problems derived from this choice. Also at the center of my studies are the perceptions and stereotypes that users have about certain first names. In collaboration with other colleagues, I have studied the relationship between onomastics and literature, phraseology and political and historical changes. I have directed my final thesis on nicknames, hypocoristics, given names and surnames in the Cuban context. As part of the bibliographic studies group at ICOS, I have compiled and organized research on Cuban anthroponymy. I am currently finishing my doctoral thesis on the namegiving process in the city of Santa Clara, Cuba. To connect with the new generations and stimulate interest in onomastics I have created my own YouTube channel with the aim of making the discipline more dynamic, accessible and attractive.

Elian Carsenat, Namsor, France

I am a private researcher on names and created NamSor applied onomastics software in 2012. The idea was to apply various machine learning algorithms to names. For example, we train a probabilistic model to distinguish personal names from place names, brand names etc. which is mostly used to clean data. Also, we have a model to infer gender from names, combining baby name statistics and morphology, which provides accurate probabilities in all regions / alphabets which is used in large gender studies (EU SheFigures ; Elsevier’s reports on gender in research). Finaly, we work on models to classify names by ‘race’/ethnicity or country of origin and apply those models to the complex and important problem of estimating ethnic biases in external algorithms (recruitment, credit allocations etc.)

Francesco Cerchiaro, Center for Sociological Research, KU Leuven, Belgium

I am a cultural sociologist with a specific interest in the intersection of family, migration and religion. I came across the study of names during my research on Christian-Muslim families in Italy, France and Belgium. Although mixed couples are often interpreted as a marker of the gradual loosening of traditional ties, naming practices, on the contrary, show parents’ attempt to pass down their racial, ethnic and faith backgrounds. Moreover, naming practices open up a new perspective to analyse how partners mediate with the expectations of the family of origin and with the social context characterised by a growing islamophobia.

Hannah Deakin-Smith, Nottingham Trent University, UK

I am a social scientist, and my earlier research focused on international student and academic mobility. More recently, I have researched people’s names and identities. As a researcher on the ‘Say My Name’ project, I examined experiences of the pronunciation of student names within higher education in England in the context of culturally diverse student identities. I was also a researcher on a project on long term trends in name changes via analyses of enrolled deed polls. From September 2022, I will be working on the Leverhulme Trust-funded project ‘Name stories: experiences of names & naming in adoptive family life’.

Thomas Ditye, Sigmund Freud University, Austria

Together with my colleague Lisa Welleschik I am interested in the psychological mechanisms of the inability to call others by their personal names. Concerned individuals report to experience anxieties and emotional stress in situations in which calling someone by their name is intended. Our data show that the problem is getting more severe the closer the relationship, linking it to identity and attachment. We have started referring to this condition by “alexinomia” which means “no words for names” and are currently exploring the topic using quantitative and qualitative research methods.

Alexinomia Research Website

Birgit Eggert, University of Copenhagen, Denmark

I am an onomastician and Nordic philologist. I am interested in personal names as a mirror of cultural currents in society. I mainly use quantitative data from censuses and church books to describe the changes that have taken place in naming over time, and how these changes have manifested differently in relation to time, place and social position, i.e., how innovations spread in society. My research is primarily historical, but I have also worked on trends and changes in today’s baby names, both in terms of the names and of their spelling.

© Oliviu Felecan

Oliviu Felecan, University of Cluj-Napoca, Romania

I am a Professor Dr. Habil., PhD supervisor at the Technical University of Cluj-Napoca, Faculty of Letters (Romania). My main research interest include onomastics (both anthroponymy and toponymy), socio-, ethno-, and psycholinguistics, lexicology, classical languages. I have authored three books, co-authored four, edited or co-edited fourteen volumes, and published more than 160 studies, primarily in the field of onomastics. I have organised six editions of the International Conference on Onomastics “Name and Naming” (ICONN, 2011-2023). Since 2019, I have been the Editor-in-Chief of Onoma, the journal of ICOS, and I am also a member of the Scientific Committees of several journals from various countries.

Email: olifelecan@yahoo.com

ORCID ID: 0000-0002-0078-4437 

  • Publications:

    - Romanian First Names in America: A Synchronic Perspective, in ”Onomástica desde América Latina”, 4 (2)/2023, p. 1-17, https://e-revista.unioeste.br/index.php/onomastica/article/view/31665/22463 .

    -Together with Adelina Emilia Mihali, Romanian-Ukrainian Anthroponymic Contact on the Interstate Border along the Tisza River, in „Names”, 71(4)/2023, p. 5-18, DOI 10.5195/names.2023.2597 , https://ans-names.pitt.edu/ans/article/view/2597/2417 .

    -Transylvania – An Anthroponymic Perspective, in Names and Naming: Multicultural Aspects, Palgrave Macmillan, O. Felecan, A. Bugheșiu (eds.), 2021, p. 149-163,  https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-73186-1_10.

    - A Psycholinguistic Approach to Nicknaming (With Reference to Nicknames Given by Students to Teachers), in ‘Names and Their Environment’. Proceedings of the 25th International Congress of Onomastic Sciences, Glasgow, 25-29 August 2014, vol. 3, (Carole Hough, Daria Izdebska eds.), University of Glasgow, 2016, p. 65-81, http://www.icos2014.com/wp-content/uploads/icos2014_vol_3.pdf

    - Together with Daiana Felecan, Nicknames of Romanian Politicians after 1989, in “Philologica Jassyensia”, XII, no. 2 (24)/2016, p. 191-208 (http://www.philologica-jassyensia.ro/upload/XII_2_FELECAN.pdf).

    - Unconventional First Names: Between Onomastic Innovations and Illustrious Models, in Oliviu Felecan, Daiana Felecan (eds.), Unconventional Anthroponyms: Formation Patterns and Discursive Function, Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2014, p. 133-155.

    - Gypsy names: anthroponymic identity/assimilation, in Joan Tort i Donada, Montserrat Montagut i Montagut (eds.), Els noms en la vida quotidiana. Actes del XXIV Congrés Internacional d’ICOS sobre Ciències Onomàstiques/ Names in daily life. Proceedings of the XXIV ICOS International Congress of Onomastic Sciences, Secció 4, Barcelona: Generalitat de Catalunya, Departament de Cultura, 2014, p. 502-514.

    -Il contatto linguistico romeno-romanzo attuale, riflesso nell'antroponimia [The contemporary Romanian-Romance linguistic contact mirrored in anthroponymy], in Actes de 26é Congrés Internacional de Lingüística i Filologia Romàniques, Valencia, Berlin/ New York: Walter de Gruyter, 2013, vol. V, Secció 6: Descripció històrica i/o sincrònica de les llengües romàniques: onomàstica (toponímia i antroponímia), p. 123-134.

    - The Monastic Names in the North-West of Transylvania. A Sociolinguistic and Cultural Perspective, in “Transylvanian Review”, vol. XIX, Supplement no. 3/ 2010: Aspects of confessional diversity within the Romanian Space, p. 193-208.

    - A Diachronic Excursion into the Anthroponymy of Eastern Romania, in “Philologica Jassyensia”, VI, no. 1 (11)/2010, p. 57-80.

Andrew Francis-Tan, National University of Singapore

I am a quantitative social scientist. My research aims to understand patterns of inequality and factors that influence social identities like race and gender. My interest in names is personal. My current family name is a combination of my spouse’s family name and my own. Growing up, people often mistook my family name (Francis) as my first/given name. Thus, I became aware that Francis was a gender ambiguous name, since the name Frances, usually given to women, was pronounced identically. More recently, I teamed up with Aliya Saperstein to investigate the socioeconomic implications of having a gender discordant first/given name. Our work is now published in Social Science Research.

Linnea Gustafsson, Halmstad University, Sweden

With a starting point in the field of linguistics, my research interest is how personal names are used in society and what they mean to their bearers. The perspective has often been within the questions of identity and otherness. Regarding personal names, I have, among other things, worked with the acceptance and spreading of new first names, the creation, and use of nicknames, structural differences between female and male first names, class differences within name giving, and names from different cultures in contact.

Federica Guccini, University of Western Ontario, Canada

As an anthropologist interested in the intersections of migration, language, and identity, I study personal names in plurilingual contexts. I examine how naming practices change when people migrate and experience shifts in their language(s) and identities. I have applied this to contexts of historical Hakka Chinese migration from southern China to Mauritius in the Indian Ocean as well as contemporary Chinese international student mobility. Informed by decolonial understandings of language, I am currently conceptualizing a translanguaging approach to naming practices that seeks to detangle names from monolingual and raciolinguistic ideologies.

Lasse Hämäläinen, University of Helsinki, Finland

My primary area of onomastic research are online usernames, i.e., names that people choose for their personal user accounts on various websites. I am especially interested in how usernames represent the identities of their owners and the cultures of online communities, as well as how they influence the communication between website users. Moreover, I have studied Finnish given names using a large given name corpus provided by the Finnish Civil Registry.

© Sophie Kihm

Sophie Kihm, Nameberry, USA

I am the Editor-in-Chief of Nameberry, the world’s largest website about names. Nameberry analyzes name trends and popularity, as well as works with expectant parents and others to choose names for their children and themselves. I am particularly interested in the intersection of names and identity, such as how a parent’s personal identity affects their choice of baby names, and how children’s names can define a family identity.

© Nübling

Damaris Nübling, University of Mainz, Germany

I am a historical linguist at Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz, Germany. I am very interested in and working on various onomastic topics, e.g. the language-specific grammar of names (mostly to protect the identity of the name body), the gender assignment of names (e.g. the neuter gender assignment to female first names in German dialects and in Luxembourgish),  gender-onomastics, i.e. the interdependence of gender and personal names, the history of given names as well as family names, on nicknames and their remarkable irrelevance to gender, names of animals, the proprialisation of common nouns to proper names, and – last but not least – about the reason when and why people change their names and why we sometimes avoid to pronounce the name of the counterpart. I am currently leading the project “Digitales Familiennamenwörterbuch Deutschlands (DFD)” (2012–2036; Mainzer Akademie der Wissenschaften).

  • Publications:

    2015     Tiernamen – Zoonyme. Vol. 1: Haustiere, Vol. 2 Nutztiere. BNF-Jubiläumsband. Heidelberg. (mit Antje Dammel und Mirjam Schmuck)

    2017    The growing distance between proper names and common nouns in German. On the way to onymic schema constancy. In: Ackermann, Tanja/Schlücker, Barbara (eds.): The Morphosyntax of Proper Names. Special issue. Folia Linguistica 51/2, 341–367.

    2017    Beziehung überschreibt Geschlecht. Zu einem Genderindex von Ruf- und von Kosenamen. In: Linke, Angelika/Schröter, Juliane (eds.): Sprache und Beziehung. Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter, 99–118.

    2018    Neue Ansätze in der Namenforschung: Plädoyer für eine Gender-Onomastik. In: Engelberg, Stefan/Kämper, Heidrun/Storjohann, Petra (eds.): Wortschatz: Theorie, Empirie, Dokumentation. Germanistische Sprachwissenschaft um 2020, Band 2. Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter, 127–150.

    2020    Die Capital – der Astra – das Adler. The emergence of a classifier system for proper names in German. In: Szczepaniak, Renata/Flick, Johanna (eds.): Walking on the Grammati­calization Path of the Definite Article. Functional Main and Side Roads. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 228–249.

    2021    (mit Simone Busley): Referring to women using feminine and neuter gender: Sociopragmatic gender assignment in German dialects. In: NoSo (Nordisk tidskrift för socioonomastik / Nordic Journal of Socio-Onomastics) 1, 33–59.

    2021    Bewegte und bewegende Namen. Lebensabschnittsnamen als Marker biografischer Transition. In: Dammel, Antje/Roolfs, Friedel/Casemir, Kirstin (eds.): Namen in Bewegung. Beiträge zur Namenforschung 56 (1/2), 17–40.

    2022    Von Heidel- nach Bamberg, von Eng- nach Irland? ‚From Heidel- to Bamberg, from Eng- to Ireland?’ On the delimitation of appellative proper names and genuine proper names. In: Caro Reina, Javier/Helmbrecht, Johannes (eds.): Proper names versus common nouns: morphosyntactic contrasts in the languages of the world. In: Language Typology and Universals (STUF), Vol. 29, 175–204.

    2023    Verweigerte Referenz? Was es bedeutet, Namen nicht in den Mund zu nehmen. In: Dammel, Antje/Schweden, Theresa (eds.): Personenreferenz. Beiträge zur Namenforschung 2023 (1/2), 229–254.

    2023     Kleiner deutscher Familiennamenatlas. Entstehung, Gebrauch, Verbreitung und Bedeutung der Familiennamen. Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter. (mit Konrad Kunze)

    2023    Mailand, Seeland, Hiddensee und Küssnacht. Asemantische Transparenz als Ziel onymischer Volksetymologie. In: Trost, Igor (ed.): Remotivierung – Von der Morphologie bis zur Pragmatik. De Gruyter, 99–122.

Sofia Kotilainen, University of Jyväskylä, Finland

I am a historian and a sociolinguist. My onomastic research focuses on personal names and the (long-term) cultural and social name-giving practices in the local communities. I have been analysing the motives of the choice of inherited first names and inherited surnames in Finnish family networks, godparenthood (namesakes), identities and mentalities of naming, as well as nicknames in the social networks. I have created a methodological concept of onomastic literacy (see Kotilainen 2022). I am also interested in royal names and naming traditions.

© Larysa Kovbasyuk

Larysa Kovbasyuk

I am an Associate Professor and Deputy Head of the Department of German and Romance Studies, Faculty of Ukrainian and Foreign Languages and Journalism, Kherson State University, Ukraine. Currently I am a Visiting Scholar at the Institute of German Studies, University of Münster, Germany.

My research interests cover a wide range of linguistic and cultural studies, including German as a Foreign Language (DaF), onomastics, gender studies, intercultural communication, new media, lexicology, phraseology, word formation, language and culture, and German literature.

My academic contributions include 74 research articles, three methodological guides, seven study and workbooks (co-authored with colleagues), as well as specialised textbooks on German grammar and the theory of contemporary German.

E-Mail: lkovbasiuk@ksu.ks.ua

  • Further information

    E-Mail:

    larysa.kovbasyuk@uni-muenster.de

    Websites: 

    https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Larysa-Kovbasyuk

    https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1441-2458

    https://www.scopus.com/authid/detail.uri?authorId=57226342160

    https://www.uni-muenster.de/Germanistik/Internationales/projekte/sprache-im-krieg.html

    https://buk-symposium.de/larysa-kovbasyuk/

  • Publications:

    Universal Precedent Anthroponyms in the Novel  “Maybe Esther” by Katja Petrowskaja. In: Transkarpatian Philological Studies  21 (2022), pp. 181-186.

    Unofficial Oikonyms of Modern German in Intercultural Communication. In: Naukovyi visnyk Khersonskoho derzhavnoho universytetu. Seriia “Hermanistyka ta mizhkulturna komunikatsiia”. Naukove periodychne vydannia 1 (2019),  S.  291 – 296.

    Eigennamen als Basis für Wortbildung in deutschen SMS-Berichten. In: Naukovi zapysky Kirovohradskoho derzh. pedah. un-tu im. Volodymyra Vinnichenka. Seriia «Filolohichni nauky» 154 (2017),  S. 114-119.

    Onomastyka suchasnoi nimetskoi movy: zdobutky ta perspektyvy nimetskoi ta ukrainskoi hermanistyky / Onomastik des Gegenwartsdeutschen: Ergebnisse und Perspektive der deutschen und ukrainischen Germanistik). In: Naukovi zapysky Natsionalnoho universytetu «Ostrozka akademiia». Seriia «Filolohichna» 58 (2015), S. 152-154.

    Kovbasyuk, Larysa & Kasatkin, Oleh.  Vlasna nazva u frazeolohichnykh odynytsiakh suchasnoi nimetskoi movy: gendernyi aspekt / Eigennamen in Phraseologismen des Gegenwartsdeutschen. In: Molody vcheny, №2 (17) (2015), S. 158-161. 

    Vornamen als primäre und sekundäre Nominationen im Gegenwartsdeutschen. In: Odessa Linguistic Journal 4 (2014),  S. 327-331.

    Kovbasyuk, Larysa. & Sereda, Svitlana. Nimetski toponimy  z  komponentom „koloronazva“: lingvolulturologichny aspekt/ Deutsche Toponyme mit dem Bestandteil „Farbname“ aus der linguokulturologischen Sicht. In: Mahisterski studii, І (2009), S. 101 – 102.

    Toponimy z  komponentom „koloronazva“ u u nimetskii ta anhliiskykh⁄ Toponyme  mit dem Bestandteil Farbbezeichnung“ im Deutschen und Englischen. In: Problemy zistavnoi semantyky 8 (2007),  S. 182 – 188.

© Katharina Leibring

Katharina Leibring, Institute for language and folklore, Uppsala, Sweden

I am a senior research archivist in onomastics at the Institute for language and folklore, Uppsala, as well as Associate Professor at Uppsala University. My main research interests are names given to individuals, humans or animals, i.e. anthroponyms and zoonyms. These categories have their specific qualities, but they do also overlap and contribute to each other. In my research I have, from different aspects, studied names from the 17th century to present times. As a socioonomastician, I am interested in how names and name categories are perceived and used, as well as what they can tell about their time.

Some of my research has focussed on names in official sources in Early Modern Sweden, but I have also studied anthroponyms and zoonyms used today, as well as attitudes to names, and how names are created and accomodated. I have given some attention to names used for economic incentives. A further area of interest to me is official name care and name planning. In this field I include studies on the Swedish name-day calendars and their role in Sweden today.

E-Mail: Katharina.Leibring@isof.se

  • Publications:

    Olle, Maja and Noa – new names in the Swedish almanac, and the history behind the name-day calendar. In: Beiträge für Namenforschung 58:4 (2024). P. 437–458.

    Rörelser inom onomastikonet i det 21:a seklet. [Movements in the onomasticon in the 21st century.] In: Namn och gränser. [Names and borders. Report from the 17th Nordic Onomastic Congress 8.-11. June, 2021.] Ed. by Väinö Syrjälä et al. Uppsala, 2023. (NORNA-rapporter 100.) P. 7–21. https://www.norna.org/sites/default/files/rapporter/NORNA100.pdf

    Swedish teenagers’ attitudes on unisex and gender-crossing first names. In: Namen und Geschlechter. Studien zum onymischen Un/doing Gender. Hrsg. Stefan Hirschauer & Damaris Nübling. Boston, 2018. (Germanistische Linguistik.) S. 303–326.

    The new Personal Names Act in Sweden – some possible consequences for the name usage. In: Namenkundliche Informationen 109/110 (2017). Schwerpunktthema Namen in Europa. Festgabe für Dieter Kremer und Albrecht Greule. P. 408–419.

    Namn och nutidskänsla. Semantiska fält i nybildade efternamn. [Names and that modern feeling. Semantic fields in newly-created surnames.] In: Namn som kjelder. [Names as sources. Report from the 16th Nordic Onomastic Congress, Jæren, Kleppe, 8.–11. juni 2016.] Ed. by Tom Schmidt & Inge Særheim. Uppsala & Stavanger: NORNA-förlaget, 2017. (NORNA-rapporter 96.) P. 133–145.

    Given names in European naming systems and Animal Names. In: The Oxford handbook of names and naming. Ed. by Carole Hough. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016. S. 199–213, 615–627.

    Karin, Kirstin och Per Månssons svära – det tidiga 1600-talets kvinnonamn och namnfraser i Sverige. [Karin, Kirstin and Per Månssons mum-in-law. The early 17th century’s women’s name and name phrases in Sweden.] In: Studia anthroponymica Scandinavica 29 (2012). P. 37–62.

    Is your name a good investment? Socio-economic reasons for surname changes in Sweden. In: Onomastic goes Business: Role and Relevance of Brand, Company and Other Names in Economic Contexts. Ed. by Holger Wochele et al. Berlin, Logos: 2012. P. 273–280.

    Children as name-givers – on the creation, formation and system structure of individual toy names in Sweden. In: Proceedings of the 21st ICOS conference in Uppsala. Vol. 5. Ed. by Eva Brylla et al. Uppsala, 2010. P. 364–371.

    Sommargås och Stjärnberg. Studier i svenska nötkreatursnamn. [’Summer goose’ and ’Star berg’. Studies in Swedish cattle names.] Doctoral dissertation. Uppsala, 2000. (Acta academiae regiae Gustavi Adolphi 69.) 542 pp.

    For my full publication list, search at www.diva-portal.org

© Francis McAndrew

Francis T. McAndrew, Knox College, USA

I am an evolutionary social psychologist who studies “namesaking,” which is the naming of a child after a parent or other relative. I am specifically interested in how namesaking is employed as a strategy for advertising personal and group identity, for optimally positioning a child within the historical and political framework of the kinship group, and for bonding fathers more strongly to their children. I am also interested in how namesaking and birth order interact in the formation of stereotypes about the personalities of namesaked individuals.

E-Mail: fmcandre@knox.edu

  • Publications:

    Johnson, J.L., McAndrew, F.T., & Harris, P.B. (1991).  Sociobiology and the naming of adopted and natural children.  Ethology and Sociobiology, 12, 365-375.

    McAndrew, F.T., King, J.C., & Honoroff, L.R. (2002).  A Sociobiological Analysis of Namesaking Patterns in 322 American Families.  Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 32, 851-864.

    Bird, A. E., & McAndrew, F. T. (2019). Does namesaking a child influence attachment style? North American Journal of Psychology, 21, 39-44.

    McAndrew, F. T. (2022). The namesaking of children as a strategy for managing kin relations and bonding fathers to their children. Evolutionary Behavioral Sciences 16(3), 220-228.

    McAndrew, F. T., & Sbai, Z. (2023). Perceptions of the personalities of namesaked children as a function of their gender and birth order. Psychological Reports, 126 (5), (available online November 8, 2023)

    McAndrew, F.T. (2021, January 14). How do we name adopted children? In Out of the Ooze: Navigating the 21st century with a Stone-Age Mind.  Psychology Today Magazine Blog.

    McAndrew, F.T. (2020, October 5). Why the choice of your child's name matters so much. In Out of the Ooze: Navigating the 21st century with a Stone-Age Mind.  Psychology Today Magazine Blog.

    McAndrew, F.T. (2015, August). Mama's baby, Papa's, MAYBE: Baby names and fathers' anxieties. In Out of the Ooze: Navigating the 21st century with a Stone-Age Mind.  Psychology Today Magazine Blog.

    McAndrew, F.T., and King, J.C. (1995, June). Birth Order and the Naming of Children: An Examination of Naming as a Strategy of Parental Investment. Paper presented at the meeting of the Human Behavior and Evolution Society, Santa Barbara, CA.

© Jean-François Mignot

Jean-François Mignot, CNRS / Sorbonne Université, France

I am a demographer who is interested in the first names of immigrants and their descendants in the West, but also more generally in the increase in the diversity of first names as an indicator of individualization, and in the phonosemantics (buba-kiki effect) of first names.

E-Mail: jean-francois.mignot@cnrs.fr

 

 

 

Rexhina Ndoci, Ohio State University, USA

As a sociolinguist I focus on the relationship between language and ethnic identity. More recently I have become interested in names with a goal of exploring the indexical meaning of ethnically marked names, name adaptations, and name changes among minoritized groups such as migrants. Moreover, I am interested in questions pertaining to the adaptation of ethnic names into majority-passing names and how those adaptations, or lack thereof, affect candidates’ chances in the job market.

© Obasi

Sharon Obasi, University of Nebraska Kearney, USA

My onomastic scholarship examines the influence of family on how we self-identify, how we are identified by others and the connections between identity, the articulation of policy and the development of programs to help minoritized and/or marginalized communities.

 

 

 

 

  • Publications: 

    • Kim, J.-m., Go, U., Obasi, S. (2024). Phonology of Gendered Names in Linguistically Comparable Countries: Korea, Bangladesh, Britain, and the U.S.A. The Linguistic Association of Korea Journal, 32 (1), 93-112.
    • Kim, J.-m., Obasi, S. (2023). Phonological Trends of Gendered Names in Korea and the U.S.A. Names: A Journal of Onomastics, 71(3), 36-46. https://ansnames.pitt.edu/ans/article/view/2485
    • Obasi, S.N., Mocarski, R., Holt, N., Hope, D., and Woodruff, N. (2019). Renaming Myself: Gender Identity and Name Selection. Names: Journal of Onomastics. 67(4), 199 211. https://doi.org/10.1080/00277738.2018.1536188 
      American Name Society 2019 Best Article of the Year.
    • Obasi, S. (2016). Naming Patterns in Rural South Central Nebraska. Names: A Journal of Onomastics, 64(3), 158-165. dx.doi.org/10.1080/00277738.2016.1197644
© Odebode

Idowu Odebode, Redeemer’s University, Nigeria

I am a Professor of Onomastics, Sociolinguistics and Pragmatics in the Department of English, Redeemer’s University, Nigeria. My interest has been in the different aspects of names/naming in Africa, particularly among the Yoruba, where the socio-cultural context(s)/circumstances (of the name-givers and, or bearers) are considered before naming a child. I have worked on multicultural aspects of names and naming in Nigeria, literary onomastics (of selected African writers like Wole Soyinka), anthroponyms on Facebook, socio-pragmatics of names, African zoonyms (in polygamous homes), names and identities among others. I am the founding president of the Society for the Study of Names in Nigeria (SSNN), the first winner of the prestigious American Name Society Emerging Scholar Award, and a Professional Commonwealth Scholar (onomastics) mentored at the University of Glasgow.

  • Publications: 

    Odebode, I. (2010). Twins’ naming among the Yoruba Nigerians: A sociolinguistic study. In: Onomastica Canadiana, 92 (1), 39–52.

    Odebode, I. (2010). Naming systems during Yoruba wars: A sociolinguistic study. In: Names, 58 (4), 210–219. https://doi.org/10.1179/002777310X12852321500220

    Odebode, I. (2012). Pet naming as protest’s discourse in polygamous Yoruba homes: A socio-pragmatic study. In: Studies in Literature and Language, 4 (1), 107–113. http://dx.doi.org/10.3968/n  http://cscanada.net/index.php/sll/article/view/j.sll.1923156320120401.245

    Odebode, I. (2013). A morpho-pragmatic study of selected anglicized Abiku names on Facebook. In: C. Uwasomba, A. Mosobalaje & O. Coker (Eds.). Existentialism, literature and the humanities in Africa: Essays in honour of Professor Benedict Mobayode Ibitokun. Göttingen, Germany: Cuvillier Verlag, 338–350.

    Odebode, I. (2019). Theonymy in anthroponymy: A sociopragmatic study of selected Yoruba African religious names. In: O. Felecan (Ed.). Onomastics between sacred and profane. Delaware, USA: Vernon Press, 265–278. https://vernonpress.com/file/6454/40d1ff9c05cf429a10ef0b152841c60c/1535521847.pdf

    Odebode, I. (2019). Motion and locution: A pragma-scientific study of Wole Soyinka’s Death and the King’s Horseman and Keye Abiona’s Even Kins are Guilty. In: D. Banks & E. Di Martino (Eds.). Specialised discourses and their readerships. The M.A.K. Halliday Library Functional Linguistics Series. Gateway East: Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd, 89–100. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-8157-7_5

    Odebode, I. (2021). Multicultural aspects of name and naming in Nigeria: A sociolinguistic study. In: O. Felecan & A. Bugheșiu (Eds.). Name and naming - multicultural aspects. Zug: Palgrave Macmillan & Springer International Publishing AG, 437–453. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-73186-1_28

    Odebode, I., & Dalamu, T. (2020). Place (re)naming through catchphrases in Nigeria: A sociolinguistic study. In: The Journal of Communicative English 25, 75–87.

    Odebode, I., Ayodeji, S., & Adeleke-Adeniji, C. (2024). Biblical names in selected plays of Wole Soyinka: A sociolinguistic study. In: Onomástica desde América Latina 5, janeiro - dezembro, 1–26. https://doi.org/10.48075/odal.v5i1.33080

    Odebode, I. (2024). From revitalization to bastardization towards attrition: Reflections on linguistic-onomastics - inaugural lecture. Ede: Redeemer’s University Press.

© Ayokumni Ojebode

Ayokunmi Ojebode, University of Nottingham, UK

I am an expert in African literature, Cultural studies and Literary Onomastics at the Institute for Name Studies (INS), University of Nottingham. I have dedicated most of my studies to unearthing the postcolonial significance of personal names in popular Nigerian literature underpinned by the literary and sociocultural contexts. I seek to connect personal names to processes within Nigerian and diasporic societies, cultures, and literature. My current projects border on naming, ecology, identities, and religion, exploring naming practices in different contexts and settings.

 

 

 

  • Publications:

    2019     Ojebode, A. & Odebode, I. Onomastics, Medicine and Politics in Femi Osofisan’s The Engagement
    in Theory and Practice in Language Studies, 9(5): 494-499, UK. 
    2019     Ojebode, A. African Onomastics: Animal Psychology and Zoonyms in the Cognomen of Alaafin of Oyo. 
    Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences Studies (JHSSS), 1(5): 22-27, Jordan. 
    2019     Ojebode, A. African Onomastics and Politics: A Demystification of Abiku Names in Femi Osofisan’s Who’s 
    Afraid of Solarin? Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences Studies (JHSSS), 1(5): 15-21, Jordan. 
    2019     Ojebode, A. (2019). African Onomastics: Animal Psychology and Zoonyms in the Cognomen of Alaafin of 
    Oyo. Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences Studies (JHSSS), 1(5): 22-27, Jordan. 
    2018     Ojebode, A. African Onomastics and Gender Semiotization in Chimamanda Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus and 
    Kunle Afolayan’s ‘The Figurine.’ Onomastica Uralica 24(14): 231-243, Hungary.          

    Non-Refereed Journal Articles
    2019     Ojebode, A., Odebode, I & Odesanya, A. Onomastics and Nicknames of Selected Cars in Nigeria: A 
                 Sociolinguistic Study. The Journal of Communicative English, (21): 16-28, Makurdi, Nigeria. 
    2019     Ojebode A. & Adeyeye, M. What’s in a Name: Political Onomastics as Historical Monikers and the Restructuring in Femi Osofisan’s Such is Life.                  
                 Contemporary Journal of Politics and Administration (CJPA), 1(1): 161-173, Ede, Nigeria. 
    2017     Ojebode, A. Ojebode, A. Africaness of African Music: A Literary Analysis of Ten Ethnotheonymic Names in Erujeje’s Songs. Madonna Journal of    
                 English and Literary Studies (MAJELS), Okija, Nigeria.

    Book Chapters
    2023      All Animals Are Equal: Rethinking ‘Animalistic’ Names and Yorùbá Epistemology in Femi Osofisan’s Kolera Kolej.’ Onomastics in Interaction
                  With Other Branches of Science. Ed. Urszula Bijak, Paweł Swoboda and Justyna B. Walkowiak. Jagiellonian University Press, Vol. 3.

    2021     Ojebode, A., & S. Ayodabo. “Name as National Archive: Capturing of Masculine Names in Tunde Kelani’s Saworoide.” In The Other Nollywood: The Cinema of Tunde Kelani, Cambridge Scholars.


    Conference Proceedings
    2022     Angry River Goddesses Speak: River Names, Memory and National Identity in Tess Onwueme’s Then She Said It! Proceedings of the United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names (Romano-Hellenic Division), Venice: Italy.
    2019     Ojebode, A. Toponymy, History and Geographic Information System of Selected Place Names in the Cognomen of the Alaafin of Oyo in Proceedings of the International Scientific UNGEGN-RHD Toponymy Symposium, 171-184, Venice: Italy. 

Liam Ó hAisibéil, University of Galway, Ireland

I am an Assistant Professor in Irish at the University of Galway, Ireland, where I teach modules on onomastics and medieval Irish literature. I have been involved in onomastic research since 2006, and my research typically involves the study of place and personal names in Ireland. I am interested in naming practices and the lexical analysis of names in medieval Irish literature, and also in current naming trends, particularly in tracing the anglicisation process and the adoption/translation of personal names in Ireland over time, and in the revival and restoration of Irish-language forms of personal names in official records since the early 20th century.

© Karen Pennesi

Karen Pennesi, University of Western Ontario, Canada

I began my research on names by investigating the experiences of people whose names do not fit into the legal, institutional and conventional frameworks for the structure, spelling and pronunciation of names in Canada. As symbols of identity, I explore how names influence self-perception and the unequal treatment of others. Given how names are especially important to social integration and belonging, I have published recommendations for treating names respectfully in a linguistically and culturally diverse society. I am currently developing a critical theoretical approach to public discourses in which names serve as objects for displaying stances toward immigrants, Indigenous people, and other racialized groups.

 

 

© Jane Pilcher

Jane Pilcher, University of West of England, Bristol, UK.

I am a Honorary Visiting Fellow at the University of West of England. As a sociologist, I use names to analyse, understand and deconstruct identities and inequalities. I am interested in naming practices in terms of identities and bodies, and in relation to greater diversity and flexibility in contemporary gender identities and family relationships. My recent projects include the pronunciation of names in higher education in the context of culturally diverse student identities, names and naming in adoption, and long term trends in name changing via an analysis of enrolled deed polls.

  • Publications:

    Pilcher, J. and Deakin-Smith, H. (forthcoming) 'That's Not My Name'.: Identity Work by Students with Minoritised Names. Equity in Education & Society. 

    Pilcher, J. (2024). Introduction: Conventions and creativity? Names in the (re)construction of gender. Nordic Journal of Socio-Onomastics, 4(1), 5–14. https://doi.org/10.59589/noso.42024.25435

    Pilcher, J., Deakin-Smith, H., Aldrin, E., & Thi My Nguyen, H. (2024). Name changing and gender: An analysis of name changes made in the United Kingdom via enrolled deed polls, 1998–2019. Nordic Journal of Socio-Onomastics, 4(1), 101–136. https://doi.org/10.59589/noso.42024.16876

    Deakin-Smith, H., Pilcher, J., Flaherty, J., Coffey, A., & Makis, E. (2024). The research politics of (re)naming participants: A sociology of names perspective. Qualitative Research, 0(0). https://doi.org/10.1177/14687941241277729

    Pilcher, J., Deakin-Smith, H., & Roesch, C. G. (2024). The pronunciation of students’ names in higher education: identity work by academics and professional services staff. Oxford Review of Education, 1–17. https://doi.org/10.1080/03054

    Pilcher, J., Flaherty, J., Deakin-Smith, H., Coffey, A., & Makis, E. (2023). Surnames in Adoption: (Re)creating Identities of Belonging. Genealogy, 7(4), 92. https://doi.org/10.3390/genealogy7040092985.2024.2331158

    Pilcher, J., & Coffey, A. (2024). Names in adoption law and policy: representations of family, rights and identities. Families, Relationships and Societies, 13(1), 105-120.  https://doi.org/10.1332/204674322X16651391589015

    Pilcher J, Hooley Z, Coffey A. (2020) Names and naming in adoption: Birth heritage and family-making. Child & Family Social Work.  25 568–575. https://doi.org/10.1111/cfs.12728

    Pilcher, J. (2017) Names and “Doing Gender”: How Forenames and Surnames Contribute to Gender Identities, Difference, and Inequalities. Sex Roles 77, 812–822 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199-017-0805-4

    Pilcher, J. (2016). Names, Bodies and Identities. Sociology, 50(4), 764-779. https://doi.org/10.1177/0038038515582157

© Eugen Schochenmaier

Eugen Schochenmaier, Baden-Württemberg, Germany

I am a linguist specializing in name studies, semantics, and applied onomastics, with a focus on surnames, given names, occupational names, and digital name-based lexicography. Since 2002, I have been engaged in onomastic research, serving as Web Officer & Webmaster for the International Council of Onomastic Sciences (2017–2024) and Information Officer for the American Name Society (2018–2019). As a Senior Onomatologist at Mondonomo, I am editing the "World Names Reference Books" series. Since 2016, I have been an online editor of ONOMA, the Journal of ICOS. Since 2012, I have run e-Onomastics, a platform dedicated to name research and linguistic trends. My expertise includes surname mapping, analysis of occupational names, and digital onomastics. I also serve as an Integration Consultant at the Department of Onomastics of the Baitursynov Institute of Linguistics (Kazakhstan), fostering collaboration between Kazakh and Western onomastic research. My work bridges traditional and digital methodologies in name studies, exploring how names reflect identity, history, and cultural transformation. I am currently working on two projects: Iranian Surnames in the USA (sponsored by Persian Heritage Foundation) and Standardizing Kazakh Surnames: Transliteration Guidelines for the 2031 Latin Script Reform (supported by the Science Committee of the Ministry of Education and Science of the Republic of Kazakhstan).

  • Publications: 

    1) with Chernovatyi, L., Reference Dictionary of Ukrainian Names. Mondonomo (2023). ISBN: 978-95-35045-50-2;

    2) Champs associatifs des noms propres et mécanismes de la compréhension textuelle. Thèse de doctorat, Université de Paris 10 (2009).

    3) Resources, media, networks and future of onomastic studies. In: Onomastica Uralica 14 (2018), p.37–51.

    4) Biblical Anthroponyms in Secular Contexts. In: Onomástica desde América Latina 5 (2024), p.1–20.

    5) Controversial Article on Geonomastics. In: Meta-CartoSemiotics. Journal for Theoretical Cartography 3 (2010), p.1–13.

    6) De la traduction du néologisme "properhood" en français. In: Onoma 52 (2017), p.115–122.

    7) Preliminary Study of the Most Frequent Russian, French and German Occupational Surnames. In: Onomastica Lipsiensia 13 (2018), p.271-290.

    8) Connotation du nom propre, ou si Nicolas Chauvin était « chauviniste ». In: Nouvelle revue d'onomastique 53 (2011), p.211-237.

    9) Comparative study of the 100 most frequent Russian, French, German and British Surnames. In: C. Hough and D. Izdebska (eds.) Proceedings of the 25th International Congress of Onomastic Sciences Glasgow 2014, Vol. 3, (2016), p. 221-232. University of Glasgow.

    10) Что такое ономатометрия, или Методы прикладной ономастики в генетике, юриспруденции, экономике и лексикографии. In: Материалы V Международной научно-практической конференции "Вопросы современной филологии в контексте взаимодействия языков и культур" (2023), p. 159-163, Оренбург. (What is Onomatometry, or Methods of Applied Onomastics in Genetics, Law, Economics and Lexicography. In: Proceedings of the V International Scientific and Practical Conference ‘Issues of Modern Philology in the Context of Interaction of Languages and Cultures’ (2023), p. 159-163, Orenburg.)

© Inga Siegfried-Schupp

Inga Siegfried-Schupp

As a linguist and historian, I work and research on questions that focus on the character of personal and place names in their cultural, historical and social context. I am particularly interested in theoretical questions on community formation by means of proper names and thus the connection between language, community, individual and naming.

During my many years of involvement in several Swiss name book projects (name books of the cantons of Bern, Basel-Stadt and Zurich), I have examined the social and interonymic contextualisation of place names in addition to linguistic-historical analyses. As the author of various linguistic and popular science publications, I am currently focussing on informal and unofficial personal and place names. These names, which are not administratively standardised, allow an unobstructed view of universal processes of name formation and open up space for comparative studies. I am therefore very pleased about this new network and the resulting opportunities for academic exchange.

Email:  kontakt@allesuebernamen.de

  • Publications:

    „Zur Erhebung inoffizieller Ortsnamen“, in: Dräger, Kathrin/Prinz, Michael, Prinz/Heuser, Rita

    (eds.) (2021): Toponyme. Eine Standortbestimmung, Berlin, 128–139.

    „Personennamen als verkörperte Wissensansprüche”, in: Nübling, Damaris; Hirschauer, Stefan (Hg.): Namen und Geschlechter: Studien zum onymischen un/doing gender. Berlin, New York 2018 (=Linguistik. Impulse &Tendenzen 76), 29–44.

    “Die Herausbildung und Verwendung des eigennamenspezifischen Suffixes -(e)mer im Alemannischen” (zusammen mit Martin H. Graf), in: BNF 52/4 (2017), 431–448.

    „Städtische Mikrotoponymie”, in: Riecke, Jörg (Hg.) unter Mitwirkung von Albrecht Greule u. Stefan Hackl: Namen und Geschichte am Oberrhein. Heidelberg 2017, 105–115.

    „Inoffizielle Ortsnamen“, in: Namenkundliche Informationen 109/110 (2017), 538–574.

    „Parallelnamen“, in: Mischke, Jürgen/Siegfried, Inga (Hg.): Die Ortsnamengebung im Kanton Basel-Stadt (=Namenbuch Basel-Stadt). Basel 2016, 222–227.

    „Eigenname und Funktion. Zur Entstehung und Tradierung von Toponymen“, in: Ehrhardt, Horst (Hg.): Sprache und Kreativität. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang 2011, 203–213.

© Julia Sinclair-Palm

Julia Sinclair-Palm, Carleton University, Canada

Dr. Julia Sinclair-Palm (they/them) is an Associate Professor in the Department of Curriculum and Pedagogy, where they serve as the Director of the forthcoming Robert Quartermain Centre for SOGI‐inclusive Excellence in Education (RQCSIEE). Before arriving at UBC, Dr. Sinclair-Palm was an Associate Professor in Childhood and Youth Studies in the Institute of Interdisciplinary Studies at Carleton University. Their work examines how young people forge new identities, imagine futures and navigate structural inequalities in the midst of these larger, and sometimes restrictive narratives about childhood and youth. 

E-Mail: julia.sinclairpalm@ubc.ca

 

  • Further information:

    Director of the Robert Quartermain Centre for SOGI‐Inclusive Excellence in Education, and Associate Professor of Teaching in the Department of Curriculum and Pedagogy, in the Faculty of Education

    The University of British Columbia | Vancouver Campus | Musqueam Traditional Territory
    2125 Main Mall | Vancouver British Columbia | V6T 1Z4 Canada

  • Publications:

    Sinclair-Palm, J. (2024). Names as a trans technology: Exploring the naming practices of trans youth in Australia, Ireland and Canada. Nordic Journal of Socio-Onomastics, 4 (1), 137-161. https://doi.org/10.59589/noso.42024.16669

    Sinclair-Palm, J. (2024). Teaching trans: Pedagogical implications of embodying course content. Reading the room: Lessons on pedagogy and curriculum from the gender and sexuality studies classroom. Ed. Natalie Kouri-Towe. Concordia University Press.

    Sinclair-Palm, J. (2023). The Role of Family in Trans Youths’ Naming Practices. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 1-14. https://doi.org/10.1080/09518398.2023.2181450

    Sinclair-Palm, J & Chokly, K. (2022). “’It’s a giant faux pas’: exploring young trans people’s beliefs about deadnaming and the term deadname.” Journal of LGBT Youth, 20(2), 370-389. https://doi.org/10.1080/19361653.2022.2076182

    Dyer, H., Sinclair-Palm, J. and Yeo, M. (2020). “Drawing Queer and Trans Kinship with Children: Affect, Cohabitation, and Reciprocal Care.” Review of Education, Pedagogy, and Cultural Studies, 42(4), 257-276. https://doi.org/10.1080/10714413.2020.1724764

    Sinclair-Palm, J. (2022). Trans Youth in Canada. The Palgrave Encyclopedia of Sexuality Education. Ed. Louisa Allen and Mary Lou Rasmussen. Cham: Springer International Publishing. (pp. 1-8). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-95352-2_88-1

    Sinclair-Palm, J. (2020). Queer and Trans Youth Organizing. The Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Education, Ed. Cris Mayo and Lisa Weems. Oxford University Press.https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190264093.013.1311

    Dyer, H., Sinclair-Palm, J., Joynt, C., Yeo, M., and Tait, C. (2020). Aesthetic Expression of Queer kinship in Children’s Drawings. Journal of Canadian Studies, 54(2-3), 526-543. https://www.muse.jhu.edu/article/780618.

    Sinclair-Palm, J. (2020). Gender and Gender Identity Development Among Young Trans People in North America. The Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Education, Ed. Cris Mayo and Lisa Weems. Oxford University Press.https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190264093.013.1549

    Sinclair-Palm, J. & Gilbert, J. (2018). “Naming New Realities: Supporting Trans Youth in Education.” Journal of Sex Education, 18 (4): 321-327. https://doi.org/10.1080/14681811.2018.1452347

Xiaoying Qi, Australia Catholic University, Australia

I am a sociologist. In conducting research on transformations of family life and family structure in contemporary China [see Qi, Xiaoying (2021) Remaking Families in Contemporary China, Oxford University Press], I came across an emerging surnaming practice. This is the provision of the mother’s surname to her child, rather than the father’s. What appears to be a demonstration of feminist power, the practice in fact operates to preserve the patriarchal line of a daughter-only family. Through development of the concept of ‘veiled patriarchy’ I demonstrate how surnaming is influenced by a number of factors, including inter-generational relations, gender cultures, and the power of property within and between families. I also examine the emotional dimension of surnaming, which is under-researched in this sparsely examined sociological space.

© Peyman Ghassemi Pour Sabet

Peyman Ghassemi Pour Sabet, Curtin University, Australia

My interest in onomastics lies in the link between socio-political changes and changes they cause in the naming practice in society. Being more than just a personal choice, naming can manifest the socio-political inclinations of any society. Any significant changes in these inclinations will bring about changes in the naming practice too. The current research project I am contributing to is a study of the link between changes in Chinese given names and social changes over a period of 200 years.

 

 

 

  • Publications: 

    Su, H., P. Ghassemi Pour Sabet, and G. Q. Zhang. 2023. "Historical imprints on Chinese ideological given names." Pragmatics and Society 15(4): 501-53.

    Sabet, P. G. P., and G. Zhang. 2020. "First names in social and ethnic contexts: A socio-onomastic approach." Language and Communication 70: 1-12.

Rachael Robnett, University of Nevada, USA

I am a psychologist and in my research I am interested in links between marriage traditions and the decisions people make about surnames.

© Daiva Sinkevičiūtė

Daiva Sinkevičiūtė, Vilnius University, Lithuania

I am an onomastician and Baltic philologist, specializing in personal names in the Baltic languages. Currently, I am examining Lithuanian names, exploring their trends and changes and how societal changes influence them. I am interested in how parents choose names for their children and how Lithuanian identity is expressed through names. Another field of my research is historical Baltic personal names, their development, and their heritage. Finally, I am also interested in the policy surrounding personal names and place names.

Further information

 

  • Publications: 

    Sinkevičiūtė, Daiva, 2024, Raides su diakritikais turintys emigrantų vaikų vardai didžiosiose emigracijos iš Lietuvos šalyse 1991-2020 m. [Names of emigrant children with Lithuanian letters with diacritics in major emigration countries from Lithuania in 1991–2020]. In: Baltu filoloģija, 33 (1), 81–98. https://doi.org/10.22364/bf.33.1.07

    Sinkevičiūtė, Daiva, 2023, Names in Contemporary Lithuanian: Valued Qualities and Their Changes, In: Proceedings of the 27th International Congress of Onomastic Sciences. Onomastics in Interaction With Other Branches of Science. Volume 2, Anthroponomastics Edited by Urszula Bijak, Paweł Swoboda, Justyna B. Walkowiak, Kraków: Jagiellonian University Press, 2023, 425–441. https://doi.org/10.4467/K7446.46/22.23.17289 

    Sinkevičiūtė, Daiva, 2023, Nauji lietuvių dvikamieniai asmenvardžiai su atviraisiais pirmaisiais kamienais, In: Baltistica, 58 (2), 315–327. http://dx.doi.org/10.15388/baltistica.58.2.2532

    Sinkevičiūtė, Daiva, 2022, The influence of borrowed names on the Lithuanian stock of personal names: the case of names ending in -ija, -ijus, In: Name and Naming. Proceedings of the Fifth International Conference on Onomastics „Name and Naming“. Multiculturalism in Onomastics, 297–309. DOI: 10.30816/ICONN5/2019/24, https://onomasticafelecan.ro/iconn5/proceedings/1_24_Sinkeviciute_Daiva_ICONN_5.pdf

    Sinkevičiūtė, Daiva, 2022, Nauji XVI a. lietuvių dvikamieniai vardai su trumpinių kilmės dėmenimis [New 16th-century Lithuanian compound names with stems of hypocoristic origin], In: Baltistica, 57 (2), 329–344. http://dx.doi.org/10.15388/baltistica.57.2.2476

    Sinkevičiūtė, Daiva, 2021, Skolintų vardų su baigmeniu -ij- kaita Lietuvos vardyne (kilmės aspektas) [The development of borrowed names ending in -ij- in Lithuanian (origin)], In: Acta Linguistica Lithuanica, 84, 232–253. https://doi.org/10.35321/all84-11

    Sinkevičiūtė, Daiva, 2020 [2021], Newly discovered Lithuanian compound names with first stem of Christian origin as witnesses of the intersection of pagan and Christian cultures, In: Onoma, 55, 149–166. https://doi.org/10.34158/ONOMA.55/2020/9

    Sinkevičiūtė, Daiva, 2018, Nežinomi Lietuvos Metrikos senieji lietuvių dvikamieniai asmenvardžiai [New Lithuanian compound proper names from the Lithuanian Metrica], In: Baltistica, 53 (1), 147–162. http://dx.doi.org/10.15388/baltistica.53.1.2346

    Sinkevičiūtė, Daiva, 2018, Litauische Vornamen naturthematischer Herkunft: Trends des letzten Jahrhunderts, In: Onomastica Uralica, 13, 243–257. https://mnytud.arts.unideb.hu/onomural/kotetek/ou13/18.pdf

    Sinkevičiūtė, Daiva, 2006, Lietuvių dvikamienių asmenvardžių trumpiniai ir jų kilmės pavardės [Shortenings of Lithuanian compound proper names and surnames of this origin], Vilnius: Vilniaus universiteto leidykla (ISBN 9986-19-973-1). https://kolekcijos.biblioteka.vu.lt/system/files/repository/fe/17/95/VUB01_000332631.pdf

Ranjana Srinivasan, Teachers College Columbia University, New York & licensed clinical psychologist, USA

I am a licensed clinical psychologist studying the experiences of name-based microaggressions within racial and cultural minority populations in the United States. “Name-based microaggressions” constitute a specific category of microaggressions that capture the subtle discriminatory comments that minority individuals experience due to their first and last names of cultural origin. Examples of name-based microaggressions include: assignment of an unwanted nickname, assumptions and biases about an individual based on their name, and teasing from peers and educators due to cultural aspects of a name. My research uncovered the mental health impact of name-based microaggressions and the coping mechanisms that minority populations utilize to combat these discriminatory experiences. It also provides treatment recommendations for mental health professionals and educators who are working with minority individuals with names of ethnic origin.

Jana Valdrová, University of Innsbruck, Austria

I am a gender linguist, and an associate researcher at the University of Innsbruck. I am interested in how the system of female and male names supports and legitimizes the binary perception of gender. Gender-neutral names are “intruders in the system” – they embody a critical reflection on the gendered world, but in patriarchalist regimes they are seen as a threat to “traditional values”. As a forensic expert, I focus on gender-neutral names in Czech legislation and Czech onomastics. I am currently analyzing onomastic literature and legislation in terms of equal treatment of names.

Stephen Wu, Hamilton College, USA

I am an economist and my research spans the fields of higher education, health economics, labor economics, and the economics of subjective well-being. I am interested in studying different ways to measure name fluency, and also studying discrimination due to name pronunciation. Among my current projects, I am researching the impact of difficult-to-pronounce names on job outcomes in academic labor markets.