Amidst all the controversies of the Rio Olympics, there was an onomastic one: It seems that the Taiwanese are more than piqued that their athletes were asked to compete under the name “Chinese Taipei.” According to a CNN interview given by Coen Blaauw, executive director of the Formosan Association for Public Affairs, the name ‘Chinese Taipei’ is “humiliating for the 23 million people of the democratic country of Taiwan”. There are also fears among supporters of Taiwanese independence that the Olympic use of the moniker would help the controversial placename stick. Although Taiwanese activist and Sunflower Movement supporter Huang Kuo-chang stressed that his compatriots “definitely want a peaceful relationship with China,” that does not mean, Kuo-Chang explained, that they should not be forced to sacrifice their own way of life or onomastic identity.
Month: September 2016
GfN Network of Scholarly Societies for Onomastic Research
The American Name Society and the German Society for Name Research (a.k.a. Deutsche Gesellschaft für Namenforschung) have joined hands in the GfN network of scholarly societies for onomastic research. Other international societies in this network include the International Council of Onomastic Sciences (ICOS), Sweden’s Institute for Language and Folklore, France’s Société Française d’Onomastique (SFO), Spain’s Societat d’Onomàstica (Sd’O), and Italy’s Rivista Italiana di Onomastica (RIOn).
6 Disproportionately Common Names By Profession
Are names indicative of our professions? Verdant Labs put together a chart of the disproportionately common names in each of a wide variety of professions.
What do you call the corner store?
Atlas Obscura looks at the many names we call the “convenience store.”
New Israeli App Helps Parents Choose Baby Names
The Israeli app The Namestork generates name suggestions based on a user’s input of names they like. The app was designed to ease all the list making. According the app’s developers, “a lot of parents already have a general idea about the ‘feeling’ of the name they’re looking for, but they still can’t find the one. The idea is to use a technological solution that will translate this general feeling into a list of names with the highest match potential.”
The most common baby names of Jewish origin
Jews may be only 2 percent of the US population, but Jewish-inspired baby names are generally popular in the United States. Take a look at this analysis.
I’m Baby Jesus and she’s my Fluffy
Oliver Black writes about little terms of endearment that become our names.
Results: Brookfield Zoo’s Wolf Pups Naming Contest
The votes have been counted. The hard decisions have been made. The three adorable wolf pups born in the Chicago Zoological Society’s Brookfield Zoo finally have names to call their own. After receiving more than 20,000 suggestions, zoo authorities have announced that the furry trio have been bestowed the names Rio, Azul, and Ela.
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