The Editorial Board of NAMES annually selects the winner of the Best Article of the Year. All articles which appear in NAMES are eligible and are rated for their writing style and organization; creativity and originality; and their potential contribution to the scholarly investigation of names and naming patterns.
2022 Award Winners: Jarmo Harri Jantunen, Terhi Ainiala, Salla Jokela, Jenny Tarvainen, “Mapping Digital Discourses of the Capital Region of Finland: Combining Onomastics, CADS, and GIS” NAMES 70(1): 19-39.
2021 Award Winners: Brian Ó Raghallaigh, Michal Měchura, Aengus Ó Fionnagáin, and Sophie Osborne, “Developing the Gaois Linguistic Database of Irish-language Surnames” NAMES 69(1):10-19.
2020 Award Winner: Heiko Motschenbacher, “Corpus Linguistic Onomastics: A Plea for a Corpus-Based Investigation of Names” NAMES 68(2): 88-103.
2019 Award Winner: 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.
2018 Award Winner: Giulia Petitta, Valerie Dively, Mark Halley, Marc Holmes & Brenda Nicodemus, “’My Name is A-on-the-cheek’: Managing Names and Name Signs in American Sign Language-English Team Interpretation” NAMES 66(4): 205-218.
2017 Award Winner: Jan Tent, “Indigenous Toponyms in the Antipodes: A Gazetteer-based Study” NAMES 65(4): 204-214.
2016 Award Winner: Gerrit Bloothooft and David Onland, “Multiple First Names in the Netherlands (1760-2014)” NAMES 64(1): 3-18.
2015 Award Winner: Michael Adams, “The Course of a Particular’: Names and Narrative in the Works of Joseph Mitchell” NAMES 63(1): 3-15.
2014 Award Winner: R. Urbatsch, “Alphabetical Effects on Political Careers” NAMES 62(4): 229–238.
2013 Award Winner: Christopher L. Robinson, “What Makes the Names of Middle-earth So Fitting? Elements of Style in the Namecraft of J.R.R. Tolkien” NAMES 61(2): 65–74.
2012 Award Winner: Stanley Brandes, “Dear Rin Tin Tin: An Analysis of William Safire’s Dog-Naming Survey from 1985” NAMES 60(1): 3–14.
2011 Award Winner: Carol G. Lombard, “The Sociocultural Significance of Niitsitapi Personal Names: An Ethnographic Analysis” NAMES 59(1): 42–51.
2010 Award Winner: Małgorzata Rutkiewicz-Hanczewska, “Proper Names in the Polish Global Reality” NAMES 58(3): 159–168.
2009 Award Winner: Denis Huschka, Jürgen Gerhards, and Gert G. Wagner, “Naming Differences in Divided Germany” NAMES 57(4): 208–228.