Member News

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.

 

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

filed under Call for Papers, Member News

The American Name Society (ANS) is inviting abstracts for scientific papers providing an analysis and discussion of indigenous names and toponyms found in former European colonies in the Americas, Africa, Asia, the Pacific and the Antipodes. Any area of the use of indigenous names may be the subject of analysis. Suggested issues for discussion include, but are by no means limited to the following: the transcription (spelling) of indigenous names and/or determining their meanings, indigenous naming practices, indigenous names as identity markers, the reinstallation of indigenous toponyms, the reclamation of indigenous language and culture through their names, and the appropriation of indigenous names, etc.… Read More