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Society for Name Studies in Britain and Ireland (SNSBI) Twenty-Sixth Spring Conference 2017, Oxfordshire, England, March 24-27 2017

From the 24 to the 27th of March 2017, the Society for Name Studies in Britain and Ireland (SNSBI) will be holding its Spring Conference in Oxfordshire, England. The programme will include several scientific presentations on toponyms in and around Oxfordshire.

The Spring Conference will be held from March 24 to 27 at the Milton Hill House Hotel, Steventon, Oxfordshire. Milton Hill House Hotel is a ten-minute taxi ride from Didcot Parkway Station. It is a 15 minute walk from bus stops in Milton Park, Rowstock, or Steventon. The location of the conference commemorates the earlier county survey volumes of Margaret Gelling: Milton Hill was historically in Berkshire and is now in Oxfordshire. Many of the conference papers will relate to Oxfordshire and the surrounding counties but papers on all regions of Britain and Ireland will be presented.

The speaker on Friday evening will be Ros Faith, on farming in woodland and in downland. Papers on place-names of Oxfordshire and the surrounding region will cover topics including: Anglo-Saxon estates, animals and place-names, field-names and archaeology. To celebrate the publication of The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland, we also have a number of papers on personal names of the area: locative surnames of Oxfordshire, South Midlands surnames, names of the Gloucestershire Cotswolds.

More on this special event can be found here.

About Names: Once-popular Carol has royal roots

“Hello, Dolly!” star Carol Channing. AP photo

Dr. Cleveland Evans writes about names for the Omaha World-Herald. To celebrate entertainer Carol Channing’s 96th birthday, his most recent column looks at the history of the name Carol. Throughout history it has been used for both men and women and although it’s now a “grandma name”, there have been quite a few prominent Carols in American history, including one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence.

When The Brain Scrambles Names, It’s Because You Love Them

Ever wonder why you call the kids by their siblings’ names – or even the dog’s name? Samantha Deffler, a cognitive scientist at Rollins College, in Winter Park, Fla., wanted to find out why it happens. She and her colleagues conducted a large study on the topic, and their findings were published in the journal Memory & Cognition. Head over to NPR to read or listen to the story. Spoiler: it’s not just you – it’s a normal cognitive glitch – based on who (and what) you love.

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

The American Name Society (ANS) is issuing its final call for abstracts for an upcoming special issue of the Society’s journal, NAMES.  This issue will be devoted to 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. For more information, see the complete call here.

Proposal Submission Process:

  1. Proposals should include a précis of no more than 500 words and a 50-word biographical sketch of the author including the author’s name, affiliation, onomastic interests, and email.
  2. All submissions must follow the Journal’s official stylistic and grammatical regulations.
  3. Proposals should be sent via email attachment in a .doc or .docx format to Dr. I. M. Nick at <mavi.yaz@web.de>, with “Indigenous Names and Toponyms” in the subject line.
  4. All submissions will be subjected to a blind peer review process.
  5. Notification of acceptance will be announced on or about 31 March, 2017
  6. Final submissions due for publication 31 July, 2017.
  7. For questions, please email Dr. I. M. Nick at <mavi.yaz@web.de>.

Call for Papers: 11th Mediterranean Morphology Meeting (MMM11), University of Cyprus (Nicosia, Cyprus), June 22-25, 2017

A special workshop devoted to morphological issues in Modern Greek lexicography will be held as a part of the 11th Mediterranean Morphology Meeting (MMM11). The conference is scheduled to take place in Nicosia (Cyprus), 22-25 June 2017. The specific aim of the conference workshop is to investigate morphological issues relating to lexicography of Modern Greek, both standard and dialectal.

Topics of interest to the workshop include:

(a) The interaction between morphological theories and lexicology/lexicography
(b) The role of morphology in different types of dictionaries (historical dictionaries, etymological dictionaries, dialectal dictionaries, reverse index, etc.)
(c) The use of dictionaries as a corpus for morphological analysis
(d) The insights of morphological theory into online dictionary design and implementation (e.g. what kind of morphological information should be included in dictionaries?)
(e) The discussion of specific morphological issues (such as productivity, neologisms, word families, variation in inflectional morphology) and the possible solutions given to these issues.

We believe that morphologists and lexicographers can fruitfully interact on these topics, with a view to assembling the information that needs to be included in a dictionary

You can read the Call for Papers here.

Interested researchers are encouraged to submit a scientific abstract of no more 400 words (excluding references) by the 15th of February 2017 to Marianna Katsoyannou at the following email address: 11mmmcy at gmail.com.

Call for Papers: ANS 2018, Salt Lake City, UT, January 4-7, 2018

The ANS is inviting abstract submissions for the 2018 annual conference to 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, 2017.  To submit a proposal, simply complete the 2018 Author Information Form.

Please email this completed form to Dr. Dorothy Dodge Robbins using the following address: drobbins@latech.edu. For organizational purposes, please be sure to include the phrase “ANS 2018” in the subject line of your email. Presenters who may need additional time to secure international payments and travel visas to the United States are urged to submit their proposal as soon as possible.

All proposals will be subjected to blind review. Official notification of proposal acceptances will be sent on or before September 30, 2017. 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 Dr. Dorothy Dodge Robbins should you have any questions or concerns.

We look forward to receiving your submission!

Staffordshire Place-Names Study Day, Stafford, UK, February 4, 2017

On the 4th of February 2017, the Institute for Name-Studies (INS) of the University of Nottingham (UK) will be holding a one-day research day devoted to Staffordshire Placenames. The Study Day will take place from 10:30am to 4:00pm. Interested attendees are encouraged to reserve their place early by going here. The event takes place at the Staffordshire Record Office,
Eastgate Street, Stafford ST16 2LZ, UK.

Jayne Carroll, John Baker and Rebecca Gregory from the INS will be giving talks, as well as Dr Nigel Tringham, County Editor for the Victoria County History of Staffordshire. There will also be opportunities to discover research conducted as part of The Place-Names of Shropshire project, and to see some of the documents used in the Staffordshire work.

Pan-American International Symposium on Toponymy, Rio de Janerio, May 3-5 2017

The Pan-American International Symposium on Toponymy will be held from the 3rd to the 5th of May 2017 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.  The main themes of the conference are toponymy in maps; indigenous and minority toponymy; and education and toponymy. After the conference, selected papers will be presented in The Brazilian Journal of Cartography and in a book publication. For more information, please contact Paulo Menezes, pmenezes@acd.ufrj.br.

Top “Posh” Baby Names for 2017

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The Tatler, a British magazine known for its coverage of high society, has picked out “some of the poshest names known to man” for those who need naming help. They assure their readers that all of the names are real, and some are several centuries old. Which name would you pick for yourself – Figgy? Monaveen? Yellow? Fenston? Victory? Or Npeter (the ‘N’ is silent)?

Kurds Are Naming Their Restaurants — And Babies! — After Trump

Banner/Thumbnail credit: Reuters

The Washington Post looks at the popularity of the name “Trump” with Kurds in Iraq. Two examples: A restaurant in northern Iraq in the Kurdish city of Duhok, which serves a kilogram of fried fish for $10, has been named “Trump Fish.”  And Hassan Jamil, a Peshmerga fighter, has named his newborn son, Trump Hassan Jamil, and has a very simple reason to give for it. Click through to find out why.