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.

The Spring 2024 ANS Bulletin is Now Available!

Click here to download the Spring 2024 ANS Bulletin.

In this issue, you will find:

  • The 2023 Names of the Year
  • ANS Has a New VP!
  • ANS Bylaws Revisions
  • And the Winner is… 2023 NAMES Best Article of the Year Award
  • An Interview with the Winner of the 2023 Best Article of the Year Award
  • Names: A Journal of Onomastics Reviewers Needed
  • Call for Proposals: High Desert Linguistics Society Conference
  • In Memoriam: Honoring the Legacy of ANS Members
  • ANS Executive Council 2023 End-of-Year Reports
  • 2024 ANS Executive Council

Read more in the Spring 2024 ANS Bulletin!

ANS 2024 Conference YouTube Videos

We are pleased to announce that all recorded presentations from the 2024 Annual meeting have now been uploaded to our YouTube channel. There are 14 videos, representing outstanding onomastics scholarship from members all over the world. Please visit our YouTube channel to view these videos, as well as those from the previous Annual Conferences!

Publication Announcement — Names: A Journal of Onomastics 72, no. 1 (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 1 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

Uniqueness and agency in English Naming Practices of Mainland Chinese Students by Robert Weekly, Shih-Ching (Susan) Picucci-Huang

Chinese Onomasticons of Posthumous Names: Between Ritual Practice and Historical Exegesis by Yegor Grebnev

Actant Models of Kazakh Anthroponyms-Composites with Substantive and Verb Components by Zifa Temirgazina, Gulnara Abisheva, and Rumaniyat Aselderova

Navigating Linguistic Similarities Among Countries Using Fuzzy Sets of Proper Names by Davor Lauc

Book Reviews

The Names of the Wyandot by Rebekah R. Ingram

Place Names: Approaches and Perspectives in Toponymy and Toponomastics by Daniel Duncan

 

Report

2023 Award for Best Article in NAMES: A Journal of Onomastics by I.M. Nick

Name of the Year Report 2023 by I.M. Nick

View All Issues

Call for Papers: “Literary Name Games: Onomastic Indices, Icons, and/or Symbols” ANS @ MLA 2025

Literary Name Games: Onomastic Indices, Icons, and/or Symbols

Writers the world over play with names of characters, places, and more to create mood, further plot, and expand meaning. In this panel, we will consider the ways in which names of characters (charactonyms), places (toponyms), and other components function as affective identifiers, as visual or aural icons, and/or as figurative symbols in literature from any era, from any narrative genre, in any media, and for readers of any age. Useful resources might include, the archives of NAMES: A Journal of Onomastics (https://ans-names.pitt.edu/ans/issue/archive), the ANS list of terminology (https://ans-names.pitt.edu/ans/keywords), Dorothy Dodge Robbins’ edited collection Literary Onomastics (2023), and the Oxford Handbook of Names and Naming (2018).

Proposal Submission Process:

  1. Email Dr. Anne W. Anderson (awanderson.editing@gmail.com).  Please place  “MLA 2025 proposal” in the subject line.   In the email body, include the title and first line of the abstract, the full name(s) of the author(s), their affiliation(s), and their email address(es).  Attach a PDF file that includes the proposal title, abstract of up to 350 words, and a brief list of works cited. Do NOT include author identification.
  2. DEADLINE: Proposals must be received by 11:59 pm EST on Friday 15 March 2024. Authors will be notified about the results of the blind review on or by 25 March 2024.
  3. Contributors selected for the thematic panel must be members of both MLA and ANS in order to present their papers; MLA membership must be obtained by 7 April 2024;
  4. Questions? Please contact Dr. Anne W. Anderson (awanderson.editing@gmail.com)

Register for the ANS Annual Meeting 2024 (via Zoom, February 17, 2024)

Registration is open for ANS 2024, which will be held on February 17, 2024. You can register online by clicking here or the following link:

https://www.americannamesociety.org/conferences/ans-2024-annual-conference-registration/

The American Name Society Annual Meeting for 2024 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 16th.

We have been 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 schedule below is subject to change depending on speaker availability.

The Book of Abstracts will be available before the conference.

Keep apprised of any changes to the annual meeting schedule here.


Saturday, February 17, 2024

ALL TIMES ARE UTC -8:00, PACIFIC STANDARD TIME

Conference Opening Address

5:45 AM Laurel Sutton (Catchword Branding, USA), Welcome and Opening Remarks

First Session

6:00 AM Anna Tsepkova (Novosibirsk State Pedagogical University, Russia): American and Russian Nicknames of Persons, Motivated by a Combination of Linguistic and Extralinguistic Factors

6:30 AM Olga Chesnokova (RUDN University, Moscow, Russia): Ludic Representation of Toponyms in Riddles

7:00 AM Zhazira Agabekova (Nazarabayev University, Astana, Kazakhstan): The Concept of “UL” (son, child) in Kazakh Anthroponomy

Second Session

7:30 AM Halyna Matsyuk (Ivan Franko National University in Lviv, Ukraine): The linguistic landscape of Ukraine: Decolonization of geographical names associated with Russia

8:00 AM Reima Al-Jarf (King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia): To Translate or not to Translate: The Case of Arabic and Foreign Shop Names

8:30 AM Sara Racca (University of Zurich, Switzerland): From the Countryside to the Urban Outskirts: The Displacement of Old Microtoponyms in Contemporary Urbanization. An Italian Case-Study

9:00 AM Break

9:30 AM ANS Committees Meeting

Third Session

10:00 AM Deborah Ball (University of Oxford, UK): Exploring the landscape of proper names and their grammatical characteristics to understand how brand names fit in

10:30 AM Tristan Alphey (St Cross College at the University of Oxford, UK): Nicknames Maketh Man? Performing Masculinity in the Gesta Herewardi

11:00 AM Jane Pilcher (Nottingham Trent University, UK): Surnames and surnaming in families formed though adoption

Fourth Session

11:30 AM Cari Didion and Michel Nguessan (Governors State University, USA): Names, Immigration Trends and Cultural Identity: A Study Ethnic Restaurant and Grocery Store Names in Greater Chicago

12:00 PM Star Medzerian Vanguri (Nova Southeastern University, FL, USA) and Maggie M. Werner (Hobart and William Smith Colleges, NY, USA): Portmanteau Names as Ideographs

12:30 Mary Ann Walter (University of the Virgin Islands, USVI): The Persistence of Morphou: Diachronic Awareness and Usage of Toponyms in Northern Cyprus

1:00 PM Michael Akinpelu (University of Regina, Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada), Hasiyatu Abubakari (University of Ghana, Accra, Ghana) and Michel Nguessan (Governors State University, USA): Names of God and Divinities in African Languages and the Myth of Polytheism

1:30 PM ANS Annual Business Meeting and Awards Presentation 

Fifth Session

2:30 Evangeline Nwokah (Our Lady of the Lake University, USA): Clowning around with names: A linguistic comparison of hospital clown and entertainment clown names

3:00 Thomas Wickenden (Accrediting Council for Independent Colleges and Schools, retired): Reverse Reinterpretation in Dictionaries of English Place-Names: Why the origin and identity of the Hwicce remain so obscure

3:30 Sarah Bunin Benor (Hebrew Union College, USA) and Alicia B. Chandler (Wayne State University, USA): Perceptual onomastics: Survey data on Americans’ Jewishness ratings of personal names

Announcement: Best Article of the Year 2023 in Names: A Journal of Onomastics

Russell Fielding, author of the NAMES 2023 Article of the Year (Photo by Josee Cole)

The 2024 Winner of the NAMES Best Article of the Year is Dr. Russell Fielding (Photo by Josee Cole) of HTC Honours College and Center for Interdisciplinary Studies, Coastal Carolina University, Conway, South Carolina, USA. The title of his article is “‘A Change of Name During Sickness’: Surveying the Widespread Practice of Renaming in Response to Physical Illness”  [NAMES vol. 71, no. 1: 11-28].

The second place winner is “Using the ANPS Typology to Unearth the Relationship Between Japanese Sign Language (JSL) Endonymic Toponym Distribution and Regional Identity” by Johnny George of Meiji University, Department of Political Science and Economics, Tokyo, JAPAN [NAMES vol. 71, no. 3 :1-19]. The third place winner is “A Case Study of De-Russification of Ukrainian Hodonyms: Rigged Trial or Justice Restored?” by Oleksiy Gnatiuk and Anatoliy Melnychuk of the Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv in Ukraine [NAMES vol. 71, no. 4: 40-55].

Registration opens for the 2024 ANS Conference, Online, February 17, 2024

The first ANS 2024 Annual Conference will be held online, using Zoom, Saturday February 17, 2024. This one-day event will feature presentations from 16 scholars, as well as updates on the ANS and a report on the Name of the Year Discussion.

The meeting is open to anyone who wishes to attend!  Each attendee must fill out this form and pay separately.

Detailed information for attendees, along with the book of abstracts, will be sent in January.

You can register online here, or download a PDF of the Conference Registration Form and mail it to ANS Treasurer Saundra Wright, as per the instructions on the form.

The schedule will be available as soon as possible.

For more information about the ANS Conference, please visit our Conference Page.