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Call for Papers: ANS 2023, Online, 20-22 January 2023


The American Name Society is now inviting proposals for papers for its next annual conference. After deliberation of an official proposal made on the 27th of May 2022, the Executive Council of the American Name Society unanimously voted to hold the 2023 Annual Conference online. All presentation sessions will be held online during the three days of the conference. This means that our conference will NOT be held in conjunction with the LSA meeting, which is still slated to be held in person, January 2023 in Denver, CO.

Abstracts in any area of onomastic research are welcome. The DEADLINE for receipt of abstracts is July 31, 2022. To submit a proposal, simply complete the 2023 Author Information Sheet (AIS) found here:

http://www.americannamesociety.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/ANS-2023-Author-Info-Sheet.doc

Please email this completed form to ANS Vice President Luisa Caiazzo using the following address: <luisa.caiazzo@unibas.it>. For organizational purposes, please be sure to include the phrase “ANS 2023” in the subject line of your email.

All proposals will be subjected to blind review. Official notification of proposal acceptances will be sent on or before September 30, 2023. All authors whose papers have been accepted must be current members of the ANS. Please feel free to contact ANS Vice President, Luisa Caiazzo, <luisa.caiazzo@unibas.it>, should you have any questions or concerns.

Registration for the conference will open in September 2022.

A downloadable PDF of the Call for Papers can be found here.

We look forward to receiving your submission!

Call for Papers: ANS 2023, Online, 20-22 January 2023


The American Name Society is now inviting proposals for papers for its next annual conference. After deliberation of an official proposal made on the 27th of May 2022, the Executive Council of the American Name Society unanimously voted to hold the 2023 Annual Conference online. All presentation sessions will be held online during the three days of the conference. This means that our conference will NOT be held in conjunction with the LSA meeting, which is still slated to be held in person, January 2023 in Denver, CO.

Abstracts in any area of onomastic research are welcome. The DEADLINE for receipt of abstracts is July 31, 2022. To submit a proposal, simply complete the 2023 Author Information Sheet (AIS) found here:

http://www.americannamesociety.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/ANS-2023-Author-Info-Sheet.doc

Please email this completed form to ANS Vice President Luisa Caiazzo using the following address: <luisa.caiazzo@unibas.it>. For organizational purposes, please be sure to include the phrase “ANS 2023” in the subject line of your email.

All proposals will be subjected to blind review. Official notification of proposal acceptances will be sent on or before September 30, 2023. All authors whose papers have been accepted must be current members of the ANS. Please feel free to contact ANS Vice President, Luisa Caiazzo, <luisa.caiazzo@unibas.it>, should you have any questions or concerns.

Registration for the conference will open in September 2022.

A downloadable PDF of the Call for Papers can be found here.

We look forward to receiving your submission!

Duke Ellington School of the Arts’s Theater Will No Longer Bear Name of Dave Chappelle

Dave Chappelle (Photo by John Bauld, CC-BY-2.0)

Dave Chappelle announced that the Duke Ellington School of the Arts’s Theater will no longer bear his name. According to CNN, “During Monday’s dedication ceremony, Chappelle said he decided to decline the honor because he did not want his name to distract from the students’ work at the school. Last year, The Duke Ellington School of the Arts initially postponed the naming of their theater after backlash mounted over Chappelle’s Netflix comedy special, “The Closer.” The set included graphic jokes about transgender women.” The Duke Ellington School of the Arts in Washington, DC is Chappelle’s alma mater.

Read more over at CNN.

About Names: “‘Admired’ Miranda popularity flows with the tides”

Photo of Carmen Miranda from a 1941 issue of New York Sunday News (Public Domain)

Dr. Cleveland Evans writes about names for the Omaha World-Herald. In his July 3rd column, he looks at the name Miranda.

Miranda plays on the “Green” five more times this summer.

Omaha’s Shakespeare on the Green festival started June 23. Its two 2022 plays are “Othello” and “The Tempest,” with performances of the latter scheduled July 8, 10, 13, 14 and 16.

Miranda, the only female character in “The Tempest,” is the teenaged daughter of Prospero, a sorcerer who was Duke of Milan before his brother, Antonio, usurped the throne. When a ship carrying Antonio along with Alonso King of Naples and Alonso’s son, Ferdinand, sails by the island where Prospero is exiled, he conjures up a tempest, forcing them to land. Miranda and Ferdinand then fall in love.

Shakespeare created the name Miranda from Latin “mirandus,” meaning “admirable, wonderful.” When Ferdinand asks for Miranda’s name “that I might set it in my prayers,” his response to “Miranda” is “Admired Miranda! Indeed the top of admiration! Worth what’s dearest to the world!”

Coincidentally, Miranda’s a common Spanish and Portuguese surname, derived from places whose names meant “lovely” or “watchtower.”

In the 1700s, Shakespeare fans began naming daughters Miranda. By 1800, alternative spellings Maranda and Meranda appeared.

The name became much more popular in America than Britain, probably because it sounded like Amanda, another American favorite. In the 1850 United States census, there were 6,432 Mirandas, Marandas and Merandas. The 1851 British census found only 265, though total populations were similar.

Want to learn more? Read on to learn more about the name Miranda!

Call for Papers: ANS 2023, Online, 20-22 January 2023


The American Name Society is now inviting proposals for papers for its next annual conference. After deliberation of an official proposal made on the 27th of May 2022, the Executive Council of the American Name Society unanimously voted to hold the 2023 Annual Conference online. All presentation sessions will be held online during the three days of the conference. This means that our conference will NOT be held in conjunction with the LSA meeting, which is still slated to be held in person, January 2023 in Denver, CO.

Abstracts in any area of onomastic research are welcome. The DEADLINE for receipt of abstracts is July 31, 2022. To submit a proposal, simply complete the 2023 Author Information Sheet (AIS) found here:

http://www.americannamesociety.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/ANS-2023-Author-Info-Sheet.doc

Please email this completed form to ANS Vice President Luisa Caiazzo using the following address: <luisa.caiazzo@unibas.it>. For organizational purposes, please be sure to include the phrase “ANS 2023” in the subject line of your email.

All proposals will be subjected to blind review. Official notification of proposal acceptances will be sent on or before September 30, 2023. All authors whose papers have been accepted must be current members of the ANS. Please feel free to contact ANS Vice President, Luisa Caiazzo, <luisa.caiazzo@unibas.it>, should you have any questions or concerns.

Registration for the conference will open in September 2022.

A downloadable PDF of the Call for Papers can be found here.

We look forward to receiving your submission!

“Wendy’s” Namesake and Founder Dave Thomas’s Regret

Wendy’s Restaurant (Public Domain)

A recently published piece on CNN Business discusses the namesake of fast-food chain “Wendy’s”: Dave Thomas’s fourth child Melinda Lou. While the restaurants were a hit, the founder was not always satisfied with his choice of name for the chain. According to Nathaniel Meyersohn, Thomas later expressed regret over naming the restaurant after his daughter, saying “”She’s lost some of her privacy. Because some people still take her for the official company spokesperson, sometimes she hedges speaking her mind. I don’t blame her.”

Read more over at CNN Business.

Call for Papers: ANS 2023, Online, 20-22 January 2023


The American Name Society is now inviting proposals for papers for its next annual conference. After deliberation of an official proposal made on the 27th of May 2022, the Executive Council of the American Name Society unanimously voted to hold the 2023 Annual Conference online. All presentation sessions will be held online during the three days of the conference. This means that our conference will NOT be held in conjunction with the LSA meeting, which is still slated to be held in person, January 2023 in Denver, CO.

Abstracts in any area of onomastic research are welcome. The DEADLINE for receipt of abstracts is July 31, 2022. To submit a proposal, simply complete the 2023 Author Information Sheet (AIS) found here:

http://www.americannamesociety.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/ANS-2023-Author-Info-Sheet.doc

Please email this completed form to ANS Vice President Luisa Caiazzo using the following address: <luisa.caiazzo@unibas.it>. For organizational purposes, please be sure to include the phrase “ANS 2023” in the subject line of your email.

All proposals will be subjected to blind review. Official notification of proposal acceptances will be sent on or before September 30, 2023. All authors whose papers have been accepted must be current members of the ANS. Please feel free to contact ANS Vice President, Luisa Caiazzo, <luisa.caiazzo@unibas.it>, should you have any questions or concerns.

Registration for the conference will open in September 2022.

A downloadable PDF of the Call for Papers can be found here.

We look forward to receiving your submission!

About Names: “Moses popularity brought on by athletics, pop culture and biblical revivals”

The Finding of Moses by Hendrik de Clerck, Eskenazi Museum of Art (Public domain)

Dr. Cleveland Evans writes about names for the Omaha World-Herald. In his June 19th column, he looks at the name Moses.

Today should be a celebration of bowl haircuts.

Moses Horwitz (1897-1975), known by his stage name Moe Howard, was born 125 years ago today. From 1934 through 1970, he played the irascible leader of The Three Stooges, the world’s most famous slapstick comedy troupe, in more than 200 films. Their 190 Columbia Pictures shorts became television staples, making Moe’s trademark haircut known to millions.

The original Moses is the man who led the Hebrew slaves out of Egypt by parting the sea in the Bible’s Book of Exodus. Egypt’s pharaoh ordered Hebrew male infants to be killed. To save him, Moses’ mother put him in a basket floating on the Nile. He was discovered by pharaoh’s daughter, who calls him Moses because she “drew him out” (Hebrew “mashah”) of water.

That derivation isn’t plausible. Why would Pharaoh’s daughter speak Hebrew? Moses is likely from an Egyptian word meaning “born of” or “child of,” found in names of Egyptian Pharaohs Thutmosis and Ramesses, “born of” gods Thoth and Ra. The basket story was probably invented to explain the name after its Egyptian origin was forgotten. That origin, though, makes it credible Moses was a real historical figure raised in Egypt.

Before the Reformation, Moses was primarily a Jewish name. In the 16th century, it was adopted by Puritans, one example being Moses Fletcher (1564-1620), a Pilgrim signer of the Mayflower Compact.

Moses stayed in use among descendants of the Puritans. Two later examples were Moses Cleaveland (1754-1806), a Connecticut Revolutionary War general who founded Cleveland, Ohio; and Moses Beach (1800-1868), founder of the Associated Press and inventor of print syndication.

Want to learn more? Read on to learn more about the name Moses!

“First Peoples Mountain” at Yellowstone will Honor Native Americans

The mountain formerly known as Mount Doane in 1977 (Public Domain)

What was once known as “Mount Doane” will now be called “First Peoples Mountain.” The former name of the mountain was given to honor Gustavus Doane, the person responsible for securing federal protection for the land during the 1870 Washburn-Langford-Doane expedition. The National Park Service recently announced that Doane was also responsible for the Marias Massacre, an attack that led to the deaths of at least 173 Native Americans, and the mountain would therefore be renamed. The new name, NPR reports, “is part of a trend to better recognize the roles and contributions of Native Americans” and a priority of Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland.

Read more over at NPR.

World Health Organization to give “Monkeypox” a New Name

Flag of the WHO (Public Domain)

The World Health Organization has pledged to change the name of the “monkeypox” virus. NPR reports that the decision was made “after scientists recently criticized the current name as “discriminatory and stigmatizing.” The researchers say it’s also inaccurate to name versions of the virus after parts of Africa.” The virus has gained notoriety after a growing outbreak in nearly 40 countries around the world.

Read more over at NPR.