American Name Society Spring 2021 Newsletter

The American Name Society is pleased to share the ANS Spring 2021 Newsletter.

Please consider becoming a member to receive more news updates.

Call for Interviewees on the Baby Names Podcast!

We’re seeking name experts to be interviewed on this season of The Baby Names Podcast. We’ve already featured many ANS scholars on the show and always get an amazing response. The podcast is hosted by longtime ANS member Jennifer Moss.

The Baby Names Podcast receives over 10,000 listeners PER DAY and it’s growing fast. We promote it through our site and social media and are happy to link to your social accounts and/or research. Here’s our lineup for seasons 4 & 5 – If you have an expertise in any of the subjects – or want to pitch your favorite name topic, please reach out!

Puritanical Names
Italian Names
Hebrew/Jewish Names
Early 20th Century Naming 1900-1930
Cultural Appropriation and Names
Naming Trends
Chinese Names
Japanese Names
Slavic Names

Email Jennifer Moss, jennifer@babynames.com, to submit yourself for a topic…or to suggest one!

Call for Papers: Special Journal Issue of NAMES devoted to Children’s Literature, Names, and Naming

The American Name Society (ANS) is issuing its first call for abstracts for an upcoming special issue of the Society’s journal, NAMES. This issue will be devoted to analysis and discussion of children’s literature, names, and naming. For many of us, one of the earliest and fondest memories includes story-time, when we discovered tales that had the power to inspire, calm, or chill the spirit. Although over the years, the plots of most of those stories may have faded from our memories, the names of many of those main characters and the fictional places they inhabited, have managed to survive. For an upcoming special issue of NAMES, onomastic scholars and names enthusiasts are warmly invited to re-ignite that early childhood fascination and submit a paper that explores names and naming in literature intended for children and/or adolescents. From the names of places, people, animals, and plants to the monikers of ferries, goblins, witches, and hobbits–any type of name from any period of time or language is welcome. Papers examining author names, be they real or pseudonyms, are also invited. The primary works examined may be fiction or non-fiction. The only stipulation for submission is that the primary intended reading audience of the piece(s) of literature investigated must be children and/or adolescents/juveniles.

Proposal Submission Process

Abstract proposals (max. 500 words, excluding the title and references) should be sent as a PDF email attachment to Dr. I. M. Nick (nameseditor@gmail.com)
For organizational purposes, the proposals must include “CHILD2020” in the subject line of the email
All proposals must include an abstract, title, and a preliminary list of references;
the full name(s) of the author(s), the author(‘s’) affiliation(s) must appear in the body of the email and NOT the abstract itself
In the case of multi-authored submission, one person must be clearly designated as the primary contact
The DEADLINE for abstract submission is June 15, 2021. Authors will be notified about acceptance on or by July 15, 2021
Final papers (max 5,000 words, excluding abstracts and references) will be due October 15, 2021

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

NAMES Vol 69 Issue #1 is published!

We are delighted to announce that the new issue of NAMES is now published! NAMES 69:1 is available online at its new home at the University of Pittsburgh as an open access journal.

All articles in this and past journals are available for free, as downloadable PDFs.

If you are a subscriber to the print version of the journal, it should be arriving at your address in a couple of weeks.

Call for Papers for the Modern Language Association (MLA) Conference, Washington, DC, January 6-9, 2022

“Washington DC” by barnyz is licensed with CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.

ANS Panel at the Modern Language Association Conference: Literary Onomastics: Theory and Practice

January 6-9 2022, Washington, DC

Literary onomastics is a burgeoning subject, still in the process of establishing its status, with very few book-length studies examining the discipline in detail. Notable 21st-century examples include Leonard Ashley’s Names in Literature (2003), Alastair Fowler’s Literary Names: Personal Names in English Literature (2012), and Martyna Gibka’s Literary Onomastics: A Theory (2019). Champions of the discipline often argue that it provides an additional lens that complements extant approaches to the language of literature, rather than making any claims for general theories of literary names and naming. Papers accepted for this panel will explore literary onomastics in theory and practice. Examples of themes that can be addressed include literary names and stylistics; literary onomastics and literary theory; literary names and social or cultural theory; socio-onomastics and literature.

For more information about the MLA, check out the official website.

Proposal submission process:

Abstracts proposals (350 words) should be sent as an email attachment (PDF format) to Dr Maggie Scott (m.r.scott@salford.ac.uk)
Proposals should include “MLA 2022 proposal” in the subject line of the email
All submissions must include an abstract, title, full name(s) of the author(s), the author(s) affiliation(s), and email address(s) in the body of the email and NOT with the abstract
DEADLINE: Proposals must be received by 8pm GMT on 29 March 2021. Authors will be notified about the results of the blind review on or by 5 April 2021
Contributors selected for the thematic panel must be members of both MLA and ANS in order to present their papers, and members of MLA by 7 April 2021
For further information, please contact Dr Maggie Scott (m.r.scott@salford.ac.uk).

A downloadable version of the Call for Papers can be found here.

More information about ANS and MLA conferences is available on the Conferences page of this website.

Call for Papers: Special Journal Issue of NAMES devoted to Toponyms and Literaryscapes

The American Name Society (ANS) is issuing its first call for abstracts for an upcoming special issue of the Society’s journal, NAMES. This issue will be devoted to analysis and discussion of toponyms and literaryscapes. Although toponyms are often taken for granted in our daily lives, they carry considerable potential for acquiring personal and social meanings depending on their contexts and co-texts of use. These multi-layered meanings are often utilized by authors as literary resources for evoking associations or invoking evaluative positioning. Papers accepted for this special issue will explore how the meanings of place-names—be they real or fictional—may be effectively harnessed to shape literary settings within specific works or by specific authors. Examples of themes that can be addressed include—but are not limited to—toponyms choice/invention and their connotations; toponyms in translation; toponyms in literary theory; and toponyms and intertextuality. You can download the call for papers here.

Proposal Submission Process:

Abstracts proposals (max. 500 words) should be sent as an email attachment (PDF format) to Vice President, Dr. Luisa Caiazzo (luisa.caiazzo@unibas.it). Proposals should include a preliminary list of references.
Proposals should include “NAMES 2021 proposal” in the subject line of the email.
All submissions must include an abstract title, the full name(s) of the author(s), the author(s) affiliation(s), and email address(s) in the body of the email and NOT in the abstract.
DEADLINE: Proposals must be received by 8pm GMT on 15 March 2021. Authors will be notified about the results of the blind review on or by 10 April 2021.
The deadline for final papers is 31 July 2021.
For further information, please contact ANS Vice President, Dr. Luisa Caiazzo (luisa.caiazzo@unibas.it).

Award for Best Article in Names: A Journal of Onomastics 2019

The 2019 Award Winner is:

Dr. Sharon Obasi

Sharon N. Obasi, Richard Mocarski, Natalie Holt, Debra A. Hope, Nathan Woodruff, “Renaming Me: Assessing the Influence of Gender Identity on Name Selection” NAMES 67(4): 199-211.

Among the many accolades this piece of outstanding onomastic scholarship received, the NAMES Board Members praised this publication for its thematic originality, substantive methodology, and potential to draw attention to an area of onomastic research in need of further investigation. Moreover, the article was highly commended for its insightful yet sensitive exploration of an issue of great relevance for a segment of the world’s population that is often overlooked and denigrated. Consequently, as one Board member extolled, this article has the power to contribute to the protection of human rights, while championing the importance of diversity and self-determination. Indeed, as one Board Member stressed, given the high number of readers who have already downloaded this scholarship, it is clear that this work deeply “resonates with a wider community” and therefore promises to increase societal interest in the field of onomastics – one of the primary goals of the American Name Society.