Conference Panel: “Names and World-building in Fantasy & Science Fictional Universes” at LSA 2025, Philadelphia, PA (10 January 2025)

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:

https://web.cvent.com/event/40d9411e-b965-4659-b9c3-63046eeed3d4/

For more information about the Linguistic Society of America, click here:

https://www.lsadc.org/

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.

Registration Opens: ANS Name of the Year Discussion and Vote (Virtual, 9 January 2025)

ANS Name of the Year Discussion and Vote

Thursday, January 9, 2025 on Zoom, 12 – 2pm PST

REGISTRATION is now open! Click here to register for the discussion and vote.

Join us for our annual Name of the Year discussion! We will be nominating, discussing, and voting on eligible names in the following categories:

Personal Names: Names of groups or individuals, including nicknames, given names, surnames, or a combination of these.
Place Names: Names or nicknames of any real geographical locations (e.g., rivers, lakes, mountains, streets, buildings, regions, countries, etc.).
Brand Names: Names of commercial products, companies, organizations, and businesses (both for-profit and non-profit). This category includes personal names used as brands for commerce.
Artistic/Literary Names: Names of fictional persons, places, or institutions, in any written, oral, or visual medium (e.g., titles of art or musical works, books, plays, tv programs, movies, games, etc.).
E-Names: Names of online platforms, websites, and movements, as well as hashtags, usernames, etc.
Miscellaneous Names: Names that do not fit in any of the above five categories.

The discussion will be conducted by Laurel Sutton, ANS President and Name of the Year Coordinator.

If you have not done so already, you can nominate names via this form

Advance nominations must be received no later than December 31st, 2024, at midnight Pacific.

Tickets to this event are free!

The URL to our Zoom room will be sent to everyone who registers for this event.

Please review previous Name of the Year reports, to better understand the type of names that will be accepted:

Name of the Year Report 2023 (PDF)

Name of the Year Report 2022 (PDF)

Name of the Year Report 2021 (PDF)

American Name Society Bulletin, Summer 2024, Now available!

Click here to download the Summer 2024 ANS Bulletin.

In this issue, you will find:

American Name Society Seeking New ANS Officers for 2025
NAMES: A Journal of Onomastics Editorial Board Reviewers Needed!
NAMES New AI Policy
Book Titles and Reviewers Wanted!
Legacy Tribes to Deceased ANS Members
- John Alger (1930-2019)
- Edwin Lawson (1923-2021)
- Wolfgang Ahrens (1940-2022)
- Thomas Gasque (1937-2023)

Seeking New ANS Officers for 2025

Ever thought about getting more involved with the American Name Society? Here is your opportunity! The American Name Society is currently looking for a few good people who are interested in joining the Executive Council. Starting in 2025, new officers will be needed to fill the positions listed below.

To apply for one or more of these Executive Council positions, please fill out the application form on this page.

Vice President (2025-2027)

The person elected to this position is primarily responsible for co-organizing the ANS annual conference in close cooperation with the ANS President. As conference co-chair, the person in this position will issue an official call for papers, organize a team of reviewers, design the program of paper presentations, and coordinate with the Linguistic Society of America and the other linguistic affiliates or “Sister Societies”: the American Dialect Society (ADS), the Society of Pidgin and Creole Linguistics (SPCL), the Society for the Study of Indigenous Languages of the America (SSILA), The Association for Linguistic Evidence (TALE), and the North American Association for the History of Language Sciences (NAAHoLS). In addition to these duties, the VP also serves as a voting member of the Executive Council and, as such, is actively involved in the legislative process of the ANS. The person selected for this office has the option of running for the office of ANS President, at the end of his/her term. Candidates for this position are expected to have superior organizational, time-management, and communication skills.

Allied Conference Coordinator (2025-2027)

The person elected to this position is principally responsible for organizing the ANS session at the annual conference of the Modern Language Association. This activity involves issuing a call for papers, assembling a team of abstract reviewers, selecting three authors whose work will be presented at the MLA conference, and coordinating the presentation of the three winning abstracts with the MLA administration. In addition to these duties, as a voting member of the ANS Executive Council (EC), the Allied Conference Coordinator participates in the legislative decision-making of the Society. Although the term of service for this position is for two years, the holder of this office may be re-elected pending approval by the EC. Given the fact that this position requires close communication with the MLA, candidates who have a demonstrated expertise in literary onomastics will receive preference.

Member-at-Large (2025-2028)

The person elected to this position will serve as a voting member of the Executive Council (EC) and is expected to participate actively in the legislative decision-making involved in resolutions and motions placed before the EC. In addition to these duties, members-at-large serve on various auxiliary sub-committees to, for example, help with the nomination of new officers, coordination of the annual conference, and organization of allied conferences. Officers in this position can renew their term of service twice.

Seeking New ANS Officers for 2025

To apply for one or more of these Executive Council positions, please fill out the application form on this page.

Vice President (2025-2027)

Allied Conference Coordinator (2025-2027)

Member-at-Large (2025-2028)

Publication Announcement — Names: A Journal of Onomastics 72, no. 2 (2024) is now available!

The latest issue of Names: A Journal of Onomastics is now available online! Click here to read the latest in onomastics scholarship in volume 72, number 2 of Names. A table of contents appears below.

Names is published as an open access journal available to all via the Journal’s home at the University of Pittsburgh. All journal content, including the content found in previous volumes, is available for free online as downloadable PDF files.

Table of Contents

Articles

Gender and the Urban Linguistic Landscape: Polish Street Naming Practices by Krzysztof Górny and Ada Górna

What’s in a Name: An Exploratory Study of Similarities and Differences Between Twins and Single-born Siblingsby Emma Otta, Gustavo Crivello Cesar, Eloísa de Souza Fernandes, Renata Defelipe, Keven Leandro dos Santos, Vinicius Frayze David, and Nancy L. Segal

The Negative Effect of Ambiguous First Names in Online Mate Selection: Evidence from a Survey Experiment in Japanby Kazuya Ogawa, Hiroki Takikawa

Young Chinese Women’s Reasons for Changing their Given Names: An Online Investigation by Yi Liu

Note

A Note on the UK Local BMD: A Full Name Onomastic Resource by Stephen J. Bush

Book Reviews

The Nameplate, by Marcel Rosa-Salas and Isabel Attyah Flower, by Mary Ann Walter

Names and Naming in Beowulf by Philip A. Shaw, reviewed by T.K. Alphey

View All Issues

Call for Papers: The 2025 Annual Meeting of the American Name Society

Call for Papers

The 2025 Annual Meeting of the

American Name Society

ONLINE (via Zoom)

22 February 2025

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:

http://www.americannamesociety.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/ANS-2025-Author-Info-Sheet.doc

Email completed forms to Dr. Michel Nguessan at: abstracts@americannamesociety.org

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.

We look forward to receiving your submission!

Download a PDF copy of this call for papers here.

Call for Papers: Special Issue of NAMES on “Name Bias and Prejudice”

Call for Papers: Special Issue of NAMES

2024-05-12

The American Name Society (ANS) is now issuing its first call for abstracts for an upcoming Special issue of the Society’s journal, NAMES: A Journal of Onomastics. The theme for the 2024 Special Issue is “Name Bias and Prejudice”. From anthroponyms to commercial names, toponyms to zoonyms, proposals focusing on any name type, in any language or culture, from any time period, and utilizing any analytical method are welcome. Proposals examining name bias and prejudice in the arts (e.g., literature, music, film, etc.) are also strongly encouraged. However, all proposals must include a clearly articulated theoretical framework, research question(s), and a preliminary reference list. All submissions will be subjected to blind review. The following criteria will be used in the review process: innovation; writing style and organization; argumentation; potential to make a substantive contribution to onomastic research; and adherence to the NAMES Style Sheet. Detailed instructions for the submission process are provided below.

Proposal Submission Process

Abstract proposals (max. 800 words, not including references) should be sent as an email attachment (PDF format) to Professor I. M. Nick (nameseditor@gmail.com);
Proposals must include a preliminary reference list that follows the formatting regulations of the NAMES Style Sheet;
Proposals must include “Bias” in the subject line of the email;
All proposals must include an abstract, a tentative title, the full name(s) of the author(s), the author(s) affiliation(s), and email address(s) in the accompanying email and NOT within the body of the abstract;
DEADLINE: Proposals must be received by 15 July 2024. Authors will be notified about the results of the blind review on or by 15 August 2024.

For further information about this call, please feel free to contact Professor I. M. Nick (nameseditor@gmail.com).

We look forward to receiving your submission.