In November 2015, miners of the Karowe Mine in Batswana made a record-breaking discovery: a 1,111 carat diamond. To celebrate the historic find, the Botswana government and Lucara Diamonds, the corporate owner of the Karowe Mine, agreed to run a special name contest for the precious gemstone. As Kitso Mokaila, the Minister of Minerals Energy and Water Resources, explained in an interview with the Batswana newspaper The Voice, this competition gives the people an opportunity to come up with a name that is truly meaningful to the country. Lucara Diamond Chief Executive Officer William Lamb announced that the winner of the onomastic competition will be awarded P25 000. By comparison, the diamond itself is expected to bring in more than 20 million US Dollars.

Music mogul and budding fashion-designer Kanye West recently decreed that “Waves” would be the official name of his seventh studio album. The announcement immediately produced a palpable seismographic reaction in the American music scene among both pro-West and anti-West followers. Although Kanye has proclaimed that this work will not simply be the album of the year but the album of a lifetime, so far, what has captured the most media attention is the fact that this is the third name change for the long-awaited LP that was originally named So Help Me God and Swish.

In 1763, as a part of a perfidious plan to annihilate Native American communities, colonial commander Jeffery Amherst suggested that the military consider distributing small pox infested blankets to finally “extirpate this execrable race”. Two centuries later, General Amherst or “Lord Jeff” as many students and staff of Amherst College (named after the town of Amherst) had come to call their unofficial mascot, has made history again. In a statement released this month, the trustees of the New England college announced that the institution will no longer be using the name of the ignominious leader in any official capacity.

Should AOL re-brand under a new name? The Business Insider interviews chief marketing officer Allie Kline about the brand. The name carries brand awareness, but is its legacy positive enough to move the company forward?

Many Australians with ethnically marked names choose “coffee names” to tell the barista. It can simply be easier to choose a recognizable Anglo-Saxon name when ordering coffee. This phenomenon certainly isn’t unique to Australia.

For years now, Australian fishermen have battled against an elusive shimmering blue fish that was, according to sea lore and the UK Guardian, a real “bastard”. This year, Queensland scientist, Jeff Johnson, made that onomastic epithet official. From here on out, the fish’s official Latin name is Plectorhinchus caeruleonthus where “caeruleo” means “blue” and “nothus” bastard. As Johnson explained, the species earned its nasty reputation for its unusual pugilistic prowess. When adult males happen upon one another, they immediate lock jaws and reportedly “go at it hammer and tongs”.

The University of Iowa may be the next US institution to undergo an onomastic face lift to distance itself from the terrorist acronym, ISIS. According to an interview by the local news station KWWL, the sudden prominence of ISIS has cast an upsetting shadow over the name of one of the school’s web programs, the Iowa Student Information System. Although many students have found the onomastic coincidence unimportant to humorous, University officials have explained that the overlap has made some users reticent to use the service, for fear of calling unwanted attention to themselves for googling such a fraught moniker. To avoid this and other problems, UoI administrators officially announced that their ‘ISIS’ will be re-named.