Woodrow Wilson is perhaps best known as the 28th President of the United States. However, at Princeton University, the name of the Nobel Peace Prize winning politician from the Southern state of Virginia has begun to take on an additional association: racial discrimination.

The university’s Black Justice League has publicized the history of Wilson’s unwavering private and public support for racial segregation in the United States. According to leaders of the Princeton activists, this legacy of intolerance is not only an affront to minority students and staff, it also calls into question the appropriateness of university institutions continuing to carry the former President’s surname. Critics of the recent calls for on-campus name-changes are quick to remind, however, that the prestige which the university currently enjoys is due in no small measure to Wilson’s past leadership as one of the university’s early presidents.

According to an article appearing recently in the New York Times, the final decision over whether the names of certain campus mainstays such as the renowned “Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs” will undergo an onomastic make-over is in the hands of the University’s Board of Trustees. Although deleting the name Wilson will not right the wrongs done during the Wilsonian period, the discussion may well help current generations to appreciate the importance of protecting the civil rights which so many gave their lives to secure.

ABS news Australia recently reported that meteorologists down under are re-considering the tradition of bestowing storms male and female names. According to Alan Sharp who manages the tropical cyclone warning services for Australia, questions have been raised in response to American researchers’ findings that storms bearing female names may be taken less seriously than storms carrying male names. Whether or not the decades of results gathered by American investigators working within Gender Studies, Psychology, and Statistics actually apply to Australia has not yet been demonstrated.

Based on work published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, this assertion is to be taken quite seriously. As reported in an article from the Washington Post, some research indicates that simply “changing a severe hurricane’s name from Charley […] to Eloise[…] could nearly triple its death toll.” These findings are important for risk management.

One important branch of onomastics involves the investigation of the intersection between language and topography. To that end, many onomasticians are also geographers.

The American Name Society is sad to share the tragic news, recently confirmed by the Association of the American Geographers (AAG): On the 13th of November, 2015, French geographer, Dr. Matthieu Giroud, an Associate Professor at the Université Paris-Est Marne-la-Vallée, was murdered in the terrorist attacks in Paris, France. Dr. Giroud’s area of specialization was immigration and inter-ethnic relations. Dr. Giroud leaves behind his 3 year old son and his wife, who is pregnant with their second child.

The American Name Society expresses condolences to both the Giroud family and all the other mourners who’ve lost loved ones during terrorist attacks this year.

When an asteroid is discovered and its orbit is determined, it is given a provisional identification number. Sometime later, the celestial body may be issued a formal name to be listed by the International Astronomical Union. Recently, NASA held a contest inviting students under the age of 18 to name the asteroid number: 101955 199 RQ36.

 

Rules:

• The name could not be longer than 16 characters.
• It must be pronounceable in more than one language.
• It could not be considered offensive.

 

By the time the contest deadline arrived, officials had received more than 8,000 suggestions from school children from around the world.

After reviewing this proposals, judges finally selected the name Bennu which was sent in by 9 year old Michael Puzio from North Carolina. According to officials, what made this name the winner was meaningful history. A mythological name for a large heron, the symbol of Osiris, the name Bennu means “the Ascending One” which brilliantly reflects the fact that in 2023, the asteroid will rise and shine across Earth’s night sky.

In September 2016, NASA will launch a spacecraft to take samples from Bennu. The name of this special mission is OSIRIS-Rex, an acronym for the “Origins-Spectral Interpretation-Resource Identification-Security-Regolith Explorer.”

The Vietnamese Australian Phuc Dat Bich posted his passport to Facebook to prove that his name is authentic. This is yet another example of how ethnic diversity can complicate Facebook’s real name policy.

On the 5th of February 2015, a congressional committee was assigned to consider H.R. 760, a bill to rename the “Bureau of Prisons” to the “Bureau of Corrections”. Jason Chaffetz, a Republican representative for Utah’s 3rd congressional district, introduced the bill to help change the US society’s mindset toward incarceration. As Chaffetz explained in an interview with The Hill, the name change would also reflect the fact that 48 states in the Union currently use the name “corrections” instead of “prisons”. According to some prognoses, the bill only has a 1% chance of being enacted.

This November, the makers of the Monopoly board game unveiled the official Melbourne edition. From Great Ocean Road and the National Gallery of Victoria to Queen Vic Market and the University of Melbourne, this special edition has replaced many of the original iconic place names with well-known toponymic tourist attractions.

While many Melburnians are lamenting the loss of the toponyms they grew up with, others are complaining that the board game’s choice of place names reinforces many outsiders’ stereotypes. However, Lord Mayor of Melbourne, Robert Doyle, is not worried at all by the fuss. As he revealed in an interview featured on news.com.au, he hopes that families will have “amicable fights about what should be on the board and what is” while they have “a wonderful time playing their local game […] This is our game, a part of our community and the landmarks that make up our story.”