News
Updates, events, new publications and more
On this page you will find news about personal names research. If you have something you would like us to announce here, please send an e-mail to Dr. Anna-Maria Balbach.
Presentation of our network at the Mainz conference
“Migration onomastics: Personal names in the context of migration movements”
At the end of September, Anna-Maria Balbach presented the International Network for Personal Names Research at the 10th Mainz Name Conference. The network received a great deal of interest, and it was particularly gratifying to meet many members at the conference and exchange ideas in person.
The following photos give a small impression of the conference and the network presentation.
A big thank you goes to our network members Theresa Schweden and Anne Rosar, who organized the successful conference! THANK YOU!
Call for Papers for NORNA 51
Symposium on the topic: Names and Cultural heritage
The symposium will take place in Reykjavik, May 19-21, 2026. The abstract deadline is: 31 October 2025. More information at: https://arnastofnun.is/is/norna-2026
Registration open and Program online:
10th Conference on Names in Mainz (Germany)
"Migration Onomastics: Personal Names in the Context of Migration Movements“
Free registration for the conference from September 29 to 30, 2025, at the Academy of Sciences and Literature in Mainz is available at this link: https://www.namenforschung.net/tagungen/migrationsonomastik-personennamen-im-kontext-von-wanderbewegungen/?L=0
The program can be downloaded here: https://www.namenforschung.net/fileadmin/user_upload/Programm.pdf
What’s in a name?
Interesting blog article by Kevin Schurer in The Cambridge Group for the History of Population and Social Structure:
Link here.
New Publication!
We are pleased to announce that the special issue
"Dis/Continuity in the Representation of Gender in Names Across Cultures”
has now been published in Sociolinguistic Studies (Vol. 19, 1–2)!
Several members of our network contributed to this issue, which was organized following the last network conference under the leadership of Jane Pilcher and Ivona Barešová. You can find the issue here ( link: https://utppublishing.com/toc/ss/19/1-2).
Enjoy reading!
Call for Papers for the 10th Mainz Names Conference:
Migration Onomastics: Personal Names in the Context of Migration Movements
Dear colleagues,
We would like to draw your attention to the Call for Papers for the 10th Mainz Names Conference “Migrationsonomastik”, which will take place from September 29 to October 1, 2025 at the Academy of Sciences and Literature Mainz, Germany. The aim is to examine anthroponyms in connection with language biographies and migration processes. The focus will be on grammatical adaptation processes, transliteration, situational-pragmatic variation or the change of call, family or full names.
We invite all those who deal with personal names and/or migration to submit proposals for contributions (30 minutes + 10 minutes discussion) by March 31, 2025 to migrationsonomastik@adwmainz.de
For further information, please refer to the attached Call for Papers (German) or (English) and the conference website.
Kind regards
Anne Rosar and Theresa Schweden
The 18th Nordic NORNA-Congress: Names, norms and norm breakages
The Nordic cooperative committee for onomastic research (NORNA) will hold its’ 18th congress in Halmstad, Sweden during 21–23 May 2025 and gather onomastic researchers from all over the Nordic region (and beyond). This year’s topic is Names, norms and norm breakages. Registration without paper (or with poster presentation) can still be made via the conference website: https://www.hh.se/4.27f5742b19206ce9255305ef.html
For further information, please contact norna2025@hh.se