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The New Zealand Geographic Board has just announced a special World War I Place Naming Project.
The goal of the project is to highlight national toponyms connected to the First World War and to publicize the histories of the people and events which served as their namesakes. To mark the centenary of the war, the project will feature the 30 prominent WWI toponyms, and will officially inaugurate 16 others.
The general public is invited to participate in this special naming project by nominating places and spaces in New Zealand for onomastic recognition. Nominations can be sent to tww1placenames[@]linz.govt.nz
This year marks the 50th anniversary of a series of Civil Right Demonstrations for Voting Rights. On the 7th of March, 1965, unarmed demonstrators and activists were brutally attacked by Alabama state and local law enforcement officials armed with tear-gas and billy clubs. The scene of what is known today as “Bloody Sunday” was the Edmund Pettus Bridge.
On the 3rd of June, 2015, the Alabama Senate voted to change the name of this historic landmark to Journey to Freedom Bridge.
Supporters of the onomastic legislation argued that the name change would:
This second reason caused controversy; both Pettus-critics and Pettus-supporters argued that the name is integral to remembering the remarkable history of Southern racism and activism.
While the Alabama House of Representatives decides on the onomastic resolution, the city of Selma came together at the beginning of this month to celebrate the diamond anniversary of this (in)famous U.S. American landmark.
For additional information, see this article and this article.
Wheaton College, the alma mater of the former Speaker of the US House of Representatives, J. Dennis Hastert, recently announced that it will be removing the politician’s name from its public policy center. The announcement came in reaction to Hastert’s federal indictment in connection to his having paid over 3 million dollars to conceal his sexual misconduct during the time that he served as a highschool teacher and wrestling coach. Click here for more information, as reported by The New York Times.
Wheaton College is certainly not the first to undergo onomastic purging after news of a namesake’s criminal misconduct surfaced. Just last year, in Albuquerque, New Mexico, the district board voted to remove the name of State Senator Manny M. Aragon from the library at Lowell Elementary School after the politician was sent to federal prison for conspiracy to defraud the over 4 million dollars from the state of New Mexico.
New controversy has erupted over the domain name “dot sucks”, which encourages the creation of many protest addresses.
Just a few of the most sought after names to be conjoined with the “.sucks” domain name are Apple, Google, Microsoft, CocaCola, and McDonalds. To protect their brand, many such companies have already bought up domains featuring their brand/company and .sucks.
These domain names cost almost $3,000, compared with less than $100 for typical domain names. The company Vox Populi owns “.sucks”.
For more see on this development, see this Wall Street Journal article.
The California Assembly has passed a bill banning the use of the name “Redskins” for highschool mascots. If the bill becomes a law, all California schools would be required to expunge what many Native American activists agree is an offensive and injurious moniker by the year 2017. In June 2014, the U.S. Patent Office officially canceled the trademark name with the argument that it is “disparaging to Native Americans”.
The 16th International Conference of Historical Geographers (ICHG) will include a session on place names, historical toponymic mapping, and the contemporary reconstructions of place names in Europe and Palestine. This session will be held on the 6th of July 2015. The ICHG will take place in London, at the Royal Geographical Society, from the 5th to the 10th of July 2015. Click here for more information.
Dr. Cleveland Evans writes about names for the Omaha World-Herald. This week’s column explores Adelaide.
The 5th EUGEO Congress on the Geography of Europe will be held from the 30th of August to the 2nd of September, 2015, in Budapest. The theme for this year’s conference is “Convergences and Divergences of Geography in Europe”. Among the many topics to be explored is the Role of place names in geographical education. Click here for more information.