FINAL Call for Papers: ANS 2021, ONLINE, January 22-25, 2021

The American Name Society (ANS) is inviting proposals for papers for its next annual conference, January 22-25, 2021. After serious deliberation of an official proposal made on the 8th of May 2020, the Executive Council of the American Name Society unanimously voted to hold the 2021 Annual Conference online. All presentation sessions will be held online during the four days of the conference. This means that our conference will NOT be held in conjunction with the LSA meeting, which is still slated to be held in January 2021 in San Francisco. To submit a proposal, simply complete the 2021 Author Information Form.

Abstracts in any area of onomastic research are welcome. The NEW DEADLINE for receipt of abstracts is AUGUST 1, 2020.

All proposals will be subjected to blind review. Official notification of proposal acceptances will be sent on or before September 30, 2020. All authors whose papers have been accepted must be current members of the ANS. Please feel free to contact ANS Vice President Laurel Sutton should you have any questions or concerns.

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

We look forward to receiving your submission!

Baby’s name of Elon Musk is “X AE A-XII”

Elon Musk and Grimes really followed through with their outer this world baby name … but they had to play a little ball to comply with California law. According to the newborn’s birth certificate, Elon and Grimes seriously named their first child, X AE A-XII Musk.

Mom and Dad had to get a little creative to make their tyke all legal and stuff. As you know, Elon and Grimes’ baby boy was born on May 4th 2020, and they wanted to name him X Æ A-12 Musk. As it turns out, the aeronautic name hasn’t been accepted in California, where birth names must be limited to the English alphabet – no numbers or special signs. The result is a first name X, middle name AE A-XII and last name Musk.

REVISED Call for Papers: ANS 2021, ONLINE, January 22-25, 2021

Abstracts in any area of onomastic research are welcome. The NEW DEADLINE for receipt of abstracts is AUGUST 1, 2020.

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

We look forward to receiving your submission!

REVISED Call for Papers: ANS 2021, ONLINE, January 22-25, 2021

Abstracts in any area of onomastic research are welcome. The NEW DEADLINE for receipt of abstracts is AUGUST 1, 2020.

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

We look forward to receiving your submission!

Dr. Sara Louise Wheeler on the Baby Names Podcast, with Jennifer Moss

On the Baby Names Podcast, ANS Member Jennifer Moss interviews ANS Member Dr. Sara Louise Wheeler, Welsh Names academic, author, and poet. They also discuss the current celebrity baby news and take questions from our listeners.

Names mentioned in this episode: Justice, Blue, Sara, Rhiannon, Harri, Seren, Ffan, Jac, Macsen, Caerwyn, Dilys, Gwenhwyfar, Bran, Ebrill, Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch, and more!

Check out Dr. Wheeler’s Onomastic Blog.

Call for Papers: ANS 2021, San Francisco, CA, January 7-10, 2021

The American Name Society (ANS) is now inviting proposals for papers for its next annual conference. The 2021 conference will be held in conjunction with the Linguistic Society of America. Abstracts in any area of onomastic research are welcome. The deadline for receipt of abstracts is June 30, 2020. To submit a proposal, simply complete the 2021 Author Information Form.

Please email this completed form to ANS Vice President Laurel Sutton using the following address: <laurelasutton@gmail.com>. For organizational purposes, please be sure to include the phrase “ANS 2021” in the subject line of your email. Presenters who may need additional time to secure international funding and/or travel visas to the United States are urged to submit their proposal as soon as possible.

IMPORTANT: Because of the current global COVID-19 pandemic, it is unclear whether the conference will proceed as planned. If the LSA decides against an in-person meeting, we will consider online alternatives so that scholars may still present their important research. We will provide updates on the conference status at the ANS website and through email.

All proposals will be subjected to blind review. Official notification of proposal acceptances will be sent on or before August 30, 2020. 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 ANS Vice President Laurel Sutton should you have any questions or concerns.

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

We look forward to receiving your submission!

Call for Papers: ANS 2021, San Francisco, CA, January 7-10, 2021

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

We look forward to receiving your submission!

Czech Prime Minister didn’t know the country’s name was changed

The Czech prime minister Andrej Babiš in the interview with The Wall Street Journal said he didn’t know that his country had officially changed the name of his country to Czechia. He didn’t like it at all and called it “a stupid idea” because of possible confusions between Czechia and Chechnya.

President Zeman prefers Czechia, a centuries-old name that he said sounds nicer, and more evocative. But Mr. Babiš, the prime minister is strongly against and that is why he stationery retains the name Czech Republic. Mr. Babiš heads the government and constitutionally holds more power than President Zeman. “The prime minister has a different opinion than the president. This is freedom and democracy. That is all,” said the president’s spokesman Jiří Ovčáček.

U.S. Ambassador Stephen King recently said that the Americans rarely use the short name and he personally couldn’t remember the last time he had used it in his remarks. He added that in all official communications they use Czech Republic as most Czechs.

REVISED Call for Papers for the Modern Language Association (MLA) Conference, Toronto, Canada, January 7-10, 2021

ANS Panel at the Modern Language Association Conference

January 7-10 2021, Toronto, Canada

Please note the revised deadline: MARCH 31, 2020

The American Name Society is inviting abstract proposals for a panel with the literary theme “Toponyms and Literaryscapes”. Although toponyms are often taken for granted in our daily lives, they bear 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 a literary resource to evoke associations or invoke evaluative positioning. Papers accepted for this panel will explore how the meaning potential of place-names—be they real or fictional—is effectively harnessed to shape literary settings within specific works or by specific authors. Examples of themes that can be addressed include toponyms choice/invention and their connotations; toponyms in translation; toponyms in literary theory; and toponyms and intertextuality.

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. Luisa Caiazzo (luisa.caiazzo@unibas.it>
Proposals should include “MLA 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 with the abstract
REVISED DEADLINE: Proposals must be received by 8pm GMT on 31 March 2020. Authors will be notified about the results of the blind review on or by 3 April 2020
Contributors selected for the thematic panel must be members of both MLA and ANS in order to present their papers
For further information, please contact Dr. Luisa Caiazzo <luisa.caiazzo@unibas.it>.

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.

How the name “Karen” became an insult — and a meme

This article at Vox examines the use of names like “Karen” to identify a class of people in American society. Increasingly, “Karen” in particular has emerged as the frontrunner for the average “basic white person name” — a pejorative catchall label for a wide range of behaviors thought to have connections to white privilege.

Former ANS President Dr. Iman Nick, as well as long-time member and Name of the Year Coordinator Cleve Evans, are quoted in this article, providing a scholarly and historical view of this phenomenon. Here’s a sample:

This trend might have also gotten a boost from social media, according to Dr. I.M. Nick,a nomenclature scholar and former president of the American Name Society. “The general tendency which social media users have been shown to manifest is a high frequency of shortenings and abbreviations,” she said in an email, though she hesitated to speculate on how this tendency might apply to specific names.

Click through to read more!