The American Name Society Annual Meeting for 2025 will be held online using the Zoom platform. It is accessible via Mac or PC. The meeting will require a passcode, which will be sent via email to all registrants and presenters by February 21st.
We are working hard to set up a schedule that will work globally, and this means that some presenters will be scheduled at times outside of normal working hours.
The Book of Abstracts will be available before the conference.
The American Name Society Annual Meeting for 2025 will be held online using the Zoom platform. It is accessible via Mac or PC. The meeting will require a passcode, which will be sent via email to all registrants and presenters by February 21st.
We are working hard to set up a schedule that will work globally, and this means that some presenters will be scheduled at times outside of normal working hours.
The Book of Abstracts will be available before the conference.
The ANS will host a panel at the LSA 2025 conference, which will be held 9 to 12 January 2025 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Names and World-building in Fantasy & Science Fictional Universes
an organized session at the 2025 annual meeting of the
Linguistic Society of America
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
9-12 January 2025
The American Name Society (ANS) is pleased to announce a panel that will be convened at the 2025 annual meeting of the Linguistic Society of America (LSA), which will take place on 9-12 January 2025 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. As a long-time sister society of the LSA, the ANS frequently held its annual meeting in conjunction with the annual meeting of the LSA. This panel will celebrate the relationship between the two organizations with three papers on the theme of names and world-building.
The panel is titled “Names and World-building in Fantasy & Science Fictional Universes,” and it features three papers on names and the fantasy genre of literature and Role Playing Games. The panel will be held on 10 January 2025 from 3:30 pm to 5:00 pm in Franklin Hall 1 of the Philadelphia Marriott Downtown. The papers in this session are:
Richard Janda (IU – Bloomington), “Tolkien’s vs. Rowling’s Names: Historical vs. Modern Reality; Elvish vs. Humorous Inventions”
Brandon Simonson (Boston University), “The Linguistic Function of Religious Names in the Creative World of Dungeons & Dragons”
Jean-Louis Vaxelaire (Université de Namur) and Marine Verriest (Université de Namur), “Theirastra and Gérard: Onomastic differences between two tabletop role-playing games (RPG)”
Registration for the 2025 LSA annual meeting is now open:
The Call for Papers described the session as such:
This session explores names and naming conventions in popular culture, especially personal names and place names that appear in works of literature, music, film, and games. Names convey meaning, but they also serve greater purposes of world-building in popular culture and its reception. Whether the names are of competing houses in A Game of Thrones, the lawless outer rim worlds in the Star Wars universe, or the vault-dwelling protagonists in the Fallout series, each name adds substance and meaning to the world for which it was created. Papers in this session organized by the American Name Society (a long-time sister society of the LSA) address the complex intersection between names and the worlds that they inhabit.
Download a PDF copy of the Call for Papers by clicking here.
For more information about the LSA 2025 conference, visit the LSA conference page here.
Due to an unexpected issue with the draft submission email address, we are extending the deadline for the call for papers for the 2025 Annual Meeting.
The American Name Society is now inviting proposals for papers for its next annual conference. The one-day event will be held virtually via Zoom, allowing for the attendance of onomastics scholars from around the world. The 2025 ANS conference will not be held in conjunction with the Linguistics Society of America conference.
Abstracts in any area of onomastic research are welcome: personal names, place names, business and institutional names, names theory, names in literature, among others.
Proposals require these elements:
Title of proposed paper
250-word abstract
Shorter 100-word abstract suitable for inclusion in conference program
50-word biography suitable for inclusion in conference program
To submit a proposal, complete the 2025 Author Information Form found here:
For organizational purposes, place “ANS2025” in the subject of your email.
The DEADLINE for receipt of abstracts is August 26, 2024.
All proposals will be subjected to blind review. Notification of proposal acceptances will be sent by September 30, 2024. Authors whose papers have been accepted must be current members of ANS and must register for the annual meeting. Please contact us at the above email address if you have any questions or concerns.
The American Name Society is now inviting proposals for papers for its next annual conference. The one-day event will be held virtually via Zoom, allowing for the attendance of onomastics scholars from around the world. The 2025 ANS conference will not be held in conjunction with the Linguistics Society of America conference.
Abstracts in any area of onomastic research are welcome: personal names, place names, business and institutional names, names theory, names in literature, among others.
Proposals require these elements:
Title of proposed paper
250-word abstract
Shorter 100-word abstract suitable for inclusion in conference program
50-word biography suitable for inclusion in conference program
To submit a proposal, complete the 2025 Author Information Form found here:
For organizational purposes, place “ANS2025” in the subject of your email.
The DEADLINE for receipt of abstracts is July 31, 2024. (LAST CALL)
All proposals will be subjected to blind review. Notification of proposal acceptances will be sent by September 30, 2024. Authors whose papers have been accepted must be current members of ANS and must register for the annual meeting. Please contact Dr. Michel Nguessan at the above email address if you have any questions or concerns.
Names and World-building in Fantasy & Science Fictional Universes
an organized session at the 2025 annual meeting of the
Linguistic Society of America
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
9-12 January 2025
The American Name Society is now inviting proposals for an organized session at the 2025 annual meeting of the Linguistic Society of America. The theme of this session is “Names and World-building in Fantasy & Science Fictional Universes.” The organizing committee is especially interested in papers that address how names impact the creation of worlds in works of literature, music, film, and games (table-top role-playing games, board games, video games, and others). Sample topics might include, but are not limited to:
Names and their function in world-building
Naming conventions of fantasy and science fiction authors
Personal names in literary worlds: how the names of protagonists and antagonists contribute to the overall story told
Place names in created universes
Names and naming in games and gaming: whether video games, table top role-playing games, board games, or others
Abstracts in any area of onomastic research related to the fantasy or science fiction genres are welcome.
Proposals require these elements:
Name and affiliation of presenter(s)
Title of proposed paper
Up to 250-word abstract
Proposals should be submitted to the American Name Society via email at: abstracts@americannamesociety.org. For organizational purposes, place “LSA2025” in the subject of your email.
The DEADLINE for receipt of abstracts is August 15, 2024.
All proposals will be subjected to blind review. Notification of proposal acceptances will be sent by September 1, 2024. Following acceptance, authors must be current members of the ANS and register for the Linguistic Society of America annual meeting. Please contact us at the above email address if you have any questions or concerns.
Scheduling of the symposium by the LSA will be announced in October. Pre-registration for the meeting will open in late September.
Recently presented at the 2024 Annual Meeting of the American Name Society, collaborative work by Cari Didion and Michel Nguessan explores restaurant and grocery store names in the greater Chicago metro area. You can watch the full presentation here:
The paper is an analysis of restaurant and grocery store names in Greater Chicago. In the USA, the dominant culture is the Anglo-Saxon and/or European culture. Any other culture that is different from this dominant one is considered ethnic. Restaurants and food stores that are not part of the dominant culture are considered ethnic. With the increase and diversification of immigration to the USA in recent decades, new restaurants/grocery stores emerge with distinctive names that reveal cultural identities and/or national origins. The study’s purpose is to find out about cultural/national origins and identities, immigration trends and spatial distribution of these restaurants/food stores in the Greater Chicago area.
These ethnic restaurants/grocery stores come from diverse cultural and national origins including Asia, Latin America, Africa, Middle East, pacific islands, and others. Some ethnic restaurants/grocery store names are Fogo de Chão (Brazilian), Taste of Lebanon (Lebanese), Nhà Hàng Vietnam (Vietnamese), Ay Ay Picante (Peruvian), Denden Eritrean restaurant (Eritrea). The first part of the paper discusses the relationship between immigration trends and the emergence of ethnic restaurants/grocery stores. The second part of the paper presents and discusses ethnic restaurants and grocery store names. The third part of the paper discusses the relationship between immigration trends, ethnic restaurant names and diversity of cultures and national origins in Greater Chicago. The study concludes that ethnic restaurant and grocery store names reveal immigration trends, national and cultural origins and identities and point out the cultural diversity and spatial distribution of immigrant populations in Greater Chicago.
Biography:
Professor Michel Nguessan is an Associate Professor of Library and Information Science at Governors State University, in Illinois. He has academic background and research interest in linguistics/onomastics, software engineering and computer science, library and information science and port/maritime management. He graduated from universities in Côte-d’Ivoire, the USA and Canada.
Professor Cari Didion is an Associate Professor of Library and Information Science at Governors State University, in Illinois. She has an academic background in science education, library and information science, and higher education leadership. She holds master’s degrees from the University of Georgia and San Jose State University and is currently pursuing a doctorate in Interdisciplinary Leadership Studies.
Recently presented at the 2024 Annual Meeting of the American Name Society, Jane Pilcher’s work explores surnames and surnaming in adoption. You can watch the full presentation here:
In this talk, we present new data about adoptive family surnames drawn from our qualitative study in the UK which examines names in the experiences of adults who are either adoptees or adopters. Our findings suggest that adoptees and adopters can feel differently about surnames and how these link them – or otherwise – to familial lineages and to their own individual identities. Some adoptees may feel that their adoptive family surname does not link them authentically to that genealogical familial line or at least is disruptive for their sense of family identity. At marriage, some women adoptees were pleased to change their surname to that of their husband, as this meant they were able to exercise choice about their name-based familial identity and affiliation that had been denied them in the past. Yet other adoptees reported feeling happily connected to their adoptive family surname. For adoptees who had become parents themselves, sharing a surname with their child (and so across another generation) had made their adoptive surname meaningful to them in a way that it had not been previously. For participants who were adopters, sharing a surname with their child(ren) was also a key part of their family identity, including through extending the genealogical line. In examining these types of experiences of and feelings about family names amongst adult adoptees and amongst adopters, our article highlights the complexities of meanings of surnames for adoptive family life and for adoptees’ identities.
Biography:
Dr. Jane Pilcher is Associate Professor of Sociology at Nottingham Trent University in the UK. As a self-described sociological names nerd, Jane studies people’s names to analyse, understand and deconstruct identities and inequalities. Her current project examines names and naming in experiences of adoption.
The American Name Society is now inviting proposals for papers for its next annual conference. The one-day event will be held virtually via Zoom, allowing for the attendance of onomastics scholars from around the world. The 2025 ANS conference will not be held in conjunction with the Linguistics Society of America conference.
Abstracts in any area of onomastic research are welcome: personal names, place names, business and institutional names, names theory, names in literature, among others.
Proposals require these elements:
Title of proposed paper
250-word abstract
Shorter 100-word abstract suitable for inclusion in conference program
50-word biography suitable for inclusion in conference program
To submit a proposal, complete the 2025 Author Information Form found here:
For organizational purposes, place “ANS2025” in the subject of your email.
The DEADLINE for receipt of abstracts is July 31, 2024.
All proposals will be subjected to blind review. Notification of proposal acceptances will be sent by September 30, 2024. Authors whose papers have been accepted must be current members of ANS and must register for the annual meeting. Please contact Dr. Michel Nguessan at the above email address if you have any questions or concerns.
Recently presented at the 2024 Annual Meeting of the American Name Society, Deborah Ball’s work explores proper names and their grammatical characteristics. You can watch the presentation here:
The category of proper names is quite varied and includes personal names, place names, company names, brand names, organisations, historical events, book and film titles, and numerous other sub-categories such as ships, swords, diseases, etc. Although the literature on the linguistics of proper names is filled with examples of personal names, as well as place names and other kinds of proper names to a lesser extent, the focus of the research and discussion leans heavily towards onomastics (history and use), semantics (meaning and/or reference) and morphology (word-formation). Much less can be found on the grammar of proper names. However, what can be found describes the importance of grammatical indicators displayed by proper names in speech and in writing, in helping us to make correct interpretations between those proper names and other kinds of words such as common nouns. It appears that proper names can range from being clearly proper names to being ambiguously so, and where there is ambiguity, there is grammar to point us in the right direction. Key grammatical indicators, at least in the English language, include the presence/absence of determiners and singularity/plurality. Although most proper names behave in a similar way grammatically, each sub-category has its own personality, and there are of course numerous exceptions. Understanding these differences will help form a better understanding of the particularities of brand names.
Biography:
Deborah Ball has been working in branding, content, marketing and communications for nearly 10 years in the UK and the US. One special focus has been brand naming. This was a source of inspiration for a part-time PhD with the University of Oxford researching the linguistics of brand names.
Registration is open for ANS 2025, which will be held on February 22, 2025. You can register online via Eventbrite by clicking here or the following link:
