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Call for Nominations for the 2016 Name of the Year

indexThe American Name Society requests nominations for the “Names of the Year for 2016”. The names selected will be ones that best illustrates, through their creation and/or use during the past 12 months, important trends in the culture of the United States and Canada.

Nominations are called for in the four following categories:

Personal Names: Names or nicknames of individual real people, animals, or hurricanes.

Place Names: Names or nicknames of any real geographical location, including all natural features, political subdivisions, streets, and buildings. Names of national or ethnic groups would be included here.

Trade Names: Names of real commercial products, as well as names of both for-profit and non-profit companies and organizations, including businesses, universities, and political parties.

Fictional/Literary Names: Names of fictional persons, places, or institutions, in any written, oral, or visual medium, as well as titles of art works, books, plays, television programs, or movies.

Winners will be chosen in each category, and then a final vote will determine the overall Name of the Year for 2016. Anyone may nominate a name. All members of the American Name Society attending the annual meeting will select the winner from among the nominees at the annual ANS meeting in Austin, Texas on January 6, 2017. The winner will be announced that evening at a joint celebration with the American Dialect Society.

Advance nominations must be received before January 3, 2017. Nominations will also be accepted from the floor at the annual meeting. Please send your nominations, along with a brief rationale, to Dr. Cleveland K. Evans at cevans[@]bellevue.edu.

 

Registration opens for the 2017 ANS Conference, Austin, TX, January 5-8, 2017

American Name SocietyRegistration is now open for the 2017 ANS Conference in Austin, TX. The ANS conference will take place in conjunction with the Linguistics Society of American (LSA) Conference from January 5-8, 2017.

To register, you must join the ANS or renew your ANS membership.

Note that to renew your ANS membership, you will be redirected to the Taylor & Francis website where you will need to enter information from your renewal notice.

Once your membership is up to date, please fill out the ANS 2017 Conference Registration Form and send the form, along with payment, to ANS Treasurer Michael McGoff, as per the instructions on the form.

For more information about the ANS Conference and the LSA Conference, including rate and hotel information, please visit our Conference Page.

2017 Slate of Nominees for ANS Officers

The American Name Society is pleased to announce the 2017 Slate of Nominees for open ANS Officer positions. During the ANS annual meeting in Austin Texas in January, the Slate of Nominees will be formally presented to the ANS membership for the election process.

 

Member-at-large: Jason Chen

jasonchenJason Chen is a graduate student in Linguistics at the University of Florida. His current research focuses on language attitudes, accent perceptions, personal names, and East Asian cultures. He received his BA in English Language and Literature at Chinese Culture University in Taiwan (2008) and his MA in Linguistics from San José State University, CA (2012). During his graduate studies at San José State University, he served as the Web Master for the Linguistic Department and is therefore highly computer literate. He was awarded Outstanding Student in Linguistics at San José State University, CA in 2012. Three areas of ANS committee work that particularly interest him are streamlining the abstract review process, the ANS-ESA, and the ANS internet profile.

 

Information Officer: Laurel Sutton

laurel2Laurel Sutton is the founder and CEO of Catchword branding, an onomastic firm that develops product and company names for enterprises ranging from Fortune 100 to VC-backed Silicon Valley start-ups. She became a namer while in the PhD Linguistics program at UC Berkeley. She helps to run the LSA’s Special Interest Group, Linguistics Beyond Academia. She is computer literate and very familiar with WordPress, HTML, and social media platforms. An active member of the ANS, she has published her onomastic research in NAMES, presented at ANS conferences, and has co-organized a special panel, “Onomastics Beyond Academia”, with ANS President Nick. Her stated goals include improving the ANS website, expanding its communications capacities, and helping the ANS strengthen its presence on modern social media.

 

Emerging Scholar Award Submissions due November 14, 2016

ANS Logo final 1 img onlyPresenters for the 2017 ANS Conference who are eligible for and interested in applying for the ANS Emerging Scholar Award (ESA), should have received all pertinent information.

The information is also available here: ESA Application Invitation

Emerging Scholar Award Submissions are due Monday, November 14, 2016.

Please send submissions to both ANS President Dr. I. M. Nick (mavi.yaz@web.de) and this year’s ESA Chair, Dr. Jan Tent (jan.tent@mq.edu.au).

Updated Information: ANS Panel at the Modern Language Association Conference

philadelphia-493829_640More information is now available about the ANS Panel at the Modern Language Association Conference, January 5-8th, 2017 in Philadelphia, PA.

The American Name Society will be holding a special panel under the theme of “Names and Multilingualism.” Multilingual and multicultural communities have been developed since the ancient world. The linguistic and cultural contacts within these communities have attracted the interest of a broad range of disciplines, where in some cases different strands have emerged.

For panelist abstracts and bios see Names and Multilingualism Information.

Seeking New ANS Officers for 2018

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Ever thought about getting more involved with the American Name Society but did not know how?  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 January 2017, new officers will be needed to fill the positions listed below.

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

 

ANS Treasurer (2018-2020)

The person elected to this position will be responsible for keeping official record of all funds and securities of the Society; giving and keeping receipts for moneys due and payable to the Society; depositing all moneys in the name of the Society; responding to inquiries from annual conference attendees regarding registration payments; and informing the ANS President, the members of the ANS Executive Council, and the general membership about the financial status of the Society via an end-of-the year fiscal report. The ANS Treasurer will work closely with the ANS President, Vice President, and Membership Officer as well as Taylor & Francis, the current publisher of the ANS Journal NAMES. The person elected to this position is expected to have demonstrable accounting experience and competence in using standard spreadsheets programs (e.g., Excel). Applicants for this position must be long-term ANS members in good-standing.

 

Member-at-large (2017-2020)

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.

 

Allied Conference Coordinator (2018-2020)

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. Holders of this position are also eligible for election as an ANS Vice President.

 

Coordinator for 4 ANS Facebook Special Interest Group (2018-2020)

The person elected to this position is principally responsible for managing the ANS Facebook Special Interest Groups (SIGs). There are four ANS SIGs: 1) Personal Names, 2) Literary Names, 3) Trade Names, and 4) Place Names. For each of one of those SIGs, the coordinator is responsible for stimulating and monitoring discussions between users; regularly posting material of thematic interest; answering queries from the general public; and coordinating an informal gathering in-person during the annual ANS meetings. The people chosen for these positions are expected to have excellent writing skills; be a frequent and enthusiastic Facebook user; and have a demonstrable interest in the thematic area of the relevant SIG. The coordinators of the ANS Facebook SIGs will work closely with one another, the ANS President and Vice President, and the ANS Information Officer.

Call for Papers: ANS Conference Special Panel on Onomastics Beyond Academia

computer-564136_960_720The ANS is inviting abstract submissions for a special panel on “Onomastics Beyond Academia” for the 2017 annual conference to be held in conjunction with the Linguistic Society of America. The purpose of the panel is to highlight professional applications of onomastics outside of the university setting.

All professional names enthusiasts are invited to submit an abstract for a 20-minute presentation. Abstracts proposals should answer one or more of the following questions:

  1. How did your training in onomastics help your professional life, outside of academia (e.g. finding a job or building your own business)?
  2. How do you work with onomastic data in your profession?
  3. What are some of the most interesting challenges which you (and your colleagues) face in using names data?
  4. What new markets are opening for names enthusiasts?
  5. What practical recommendations would you give to other names enthusiasts who are interested in working outside of academia?

To submit a proposal, simply send a 250-word abstract proposal and a 100-word professional biography to Laurel Sutton [laurel@catchwordbranding.com] by the 15th of July 2016. For organizational purposes, please be sure to include the phrase “ANS 2017: Panel” in the subject line of your email.

All proposals will be subjected to blind review. Official notification of proposal acceptances will be sent on or before September 30, 2015. All authors whose papers have been accepted must be current members of the ANS and need to register with both the ANS and the Linguistic Society of America. Please feel free to contact Laurel Sutton should you have any questions or concerns.

We look forward to receiving your submission!