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Indigenous Toponyms in New York, across America

Though the indigenous peoples of the American colonies were pushed off of their land throughout the history of the United States, indigenous names proliferate throughout the North American continent. In his New Yorker essay “How New York was Named”, Joshua Jelly-Schapiro discusses the indigenous toponyms of America’s cities, states, and landmarks. Dialects of Lenape, Algonquian, and many other North American languages (which at one point made up a quarter of the world’s languages) are featured throughout the essay, as are the modern language centers founded to preserve the culture and language of the people behind these names.

Jelly-Schapiro is also the author of Names of New York: Discovering the City’s Past, Present, and Future Through Its Place-Names (Pantheon, 2021), from which the essay is adapted.

Additionally, the Institute for Public Knowledge at New York University will be hosting Jelly-Schapiro for a book talk at 6:30 pm on Thursday, May 13, 2021. Click here for more information on that talk.

About Names: Staying Power Makes “Andrew” A Smash Hit

Andrew Yang, American businessman, politician, and Universal Basic Income advocate (photo by Gage Skidmore, CC BY-SA 3.0)

Dr. Cleveland Evans writes about names for the Omaha World-Herald. In his April 26th column, he looks at the history of the name Andrew.

Will you stay up late to see hometown boy Andrew?

Andrew Rannells co-hosts “Oscars: After Dark” on ABC after the Academy Awards tonight. Rannells, who grew up in Omaha’s Hanscom Park neighborhood, was nominated for Tonys for “The Book of Mormon” (2003) and “Falsettos” (2016). He starred in television’s “The New Normal” and “Black Monday”, and the 2020 films “The Boys in the Band” and “The Prom.”

Andrew is the English form of Andreas, a Greek name derived from “andreios” (“manly”). St. Andrew, Simon’s brother, was the first Apostle of Jesus.

It’s possible the saint was born with a Hebrew name, Andrew being his nickname. On the other hand, Alexander the Great’s conquests brought Greek culture to Palestine three centuries before. Israeli historian Tal Ilan’s found 14.5% of Jews in Jesus’ time had Greek names.

St. Andrew was popular throughout medieval Europe. In England, 637 churches were dedicated to him.

Andrew did even better in Scotland. Relics of St. Andrew were brought to Scotland in the eighth century. King Angus II legendarily won a battle against the Angles in 832 after praying to the saint. The town surrounding Scotland’s national cathedral was named St. Andrews, and Andrew became a hugely popular name for Scottish boys.

Want to know more? Read on to find out more about Andrews in history!

The Mandalorian’s “Baby Yoda” has a Name

Grogu, with a misspelled name tag, at a coffeeshop in Boston shortly after the episode aired (Photo: Brandon Simonson, 2020)

At the 2019 Name of the Year competition, held during the 2020 annual meeting of the American Name Society in New Orleans, the name “Baby Yoda” won in the “Artistic and Literary Name” category. In his report of the competition, Cleve Evans writes,

Baby Yoda is the popular designation for a character in the Disney Plus Star Wars series “The Mandalorian.” In the film, this recurring character with saucer eyes and bat-like ears is known simply as The Child. However, viewers and critics quickly dubbed him Baby Yoda. The character is almost always called this alternative name on social media. It’s unusual for the common name of a fictional character that was created by fans to replace the official name originally given by writers or producers.

Season 2 of the popular series, which aired on Disney Plus in the Fall of 2020, has revealed The Child‘s real name: Grogu.

The big reveal follows the introduction of another Star Wars fan favorite, Ahsoka Tano, a former Jedi Padawan well-known from the animated Star Wars series, who reveals The Child‘s name to the titular character and audience alike. While the name Grogu was recognized and duly nominated for the American Name Society’s 2020 Name of the Year in the “Artistic and Literary Name” category, popular Canadian television series Schitt’s Creek won the vote. Read more about Grogu and The Mandalorian in the episode recap from The New York Times, and may the force be with you. Always.

Conferences: Society for Linguistic Anthropology Meeting Postponed

The 2021 annual meeting of the Society for Linguistic Anthropology has been postponed until April 7-9, 2022, SLA President Kira Hall wrote in an email on Friday evening. Additional detail can be found on the Society’s Trello site. If you would like to register for the in-person conference, you can register through the American Anthropological Association’s portal. Additional information regarding the virtual component of the conference will be released in the coming months.

To submit a proposal for the upcoming SLA conference, follow this link to their call for proposals.

One Josh to Rule them All

It all started with a short message, sent to everyone named “Josh Swain” via Facebook Messenger in the Spring of 2020:

“Precisely, 4/24/2021, 12:00 PM, meet at these coordinates, (40.8223286, -96.7982002) we fight, whoever wins gets to keep the name, everyone else has to change their name, you have a year to prepare, good luck”

Eventually, all those with the name “Josh” were invited to the faux battle, which itself was moved from private Nebraskan farmland to a nearby public location. What followed can only be described as something out of the battle royale genre: armed with foam pool noodles, people united only by their common name battled until only one Josh was left standing. Read more about the battle of the Joshes in the Wall Street Journal.

“America Ruined my Name”: Immigration, Assimilation, and Asian Personal Names

A modern story of immigration, assimilation, and the challenges that those with Asian personal names encounter through both, Beth Nguyen retells the account of her family arriving in America from Vietnam in the 1980s and the difficulties she encountered surrounding the general public’s perception of her first name. Those unfamiliar with the pronunciation of Beth’s birth name (Bich, pronounced “Bic”) might perceive it as homophonous with an English curse word, and her peers, teachers, and others often did. Beth speaks about the decision to change her name and the impact that personal names have on individuals in America, especially refugees.

Beth’s first book, published under her birth name Bich Minh Nguyen, is Stealing Buddha’s Dinner: A Memoir (Penguin, 2008).

About Names: History has many famous Duanes; ‘Young Rock’ could spark a new round

Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, photo by Eva Rinaldi (https://www.flickr.com/photos/58820009@N05/14454451081/), CC BY-SA 2.0

Dr. Cleveland Evans writes about names for the Omaha World-Herald. In his February 14th column, he looks at the history of the name Duane.

Dwayne’s a respelling of Duane, a form of Irish surname Ó Dubháin, “descendant of Dubhán.” Dubhán, “black-haired,” is known through St. Dubhán, founder of a medieval church in County Galway. Duane was the English form of Ó Dubháin in Connacht. Doane, Doone, Downe, Dewan, Dwane, and Devane were used in other parts of Ireland.

Duane first appeared on Social Security’s top thousand list in 1903. DeWayne showed up in 1918, followed by Dwayne (1921), Dwain (1923), Dwaine (1926), Duwayne (1929) and Dwane (1935).

DeWayne left the top thousand baby name list in 2002 and Duane followed in 2003. Dwayne held on until 2019. Will “Young Rock” be able to wrestle it back? We’ll know a couple of years from now.

Want to know more? Read on to find out more about Duanes in history!

In Memoriam: Ronald Butters (1940-2021)

Long-time ANS member Ronald Richard Butters 81, passed away in his home on April 6, 2021 after a long battle with cancer. Ron was born in Cedar Rapids, Iowa in February of 1940. After achieving his PhD at the University of Iowa, he moved to Durham, NC to begin his 40 year career at Duke University. He was a professor of English and Linguistics as well as a founder of the linguistics program at Duke University and held a joint appointment in the Cultural Anthropology Department at Duke. Following his retirement from Duke University in 2007, he developed a consulting firm called Trademark Linguistics and continued working in the field with many distinguished law firms.

Ron loved to travel and experience other cultures and he especially enjoyed the time he spent teaching in Bamburg, Germany and Marrakesh, Morocco, as well as the many lectures and seminars he gave in countries around the world. He was honored to touch the lives of so many students, as well as others, throughout his life.

Ron wrote extensively on naming and trademarks. A detailed list of his work can be found on his website, and you can read his obituary online here.

In Memoriam: Lynn Westney (1947-2021)

Long-time ANS member Lynn Westney passed away Sunday, Jan. 10, 2021, at Hamilton Communities in New Carlisle, Indiana. Born Dec. 24, 1947, in Chicago, Ill., to Joseph and Alma (Stankovitch) Tvrdik (both now deceased), Lynn lived a rich life filled with curiosity, exuberance and passion. In June 1980, she married William Homer Hattendorf, II, who preceded her in death in 1995. In August 1997, she married Robert J. Westney, who preceded her in death in 2014.

Lynn earned the BA in Sociology from Loyola and the MS in Library and Information Science from the University of Illinois at Champaign. Lynn enjoyed a 25-year career at the University of Illinois at Chicago where she was a reference librarian and Associate Professor and Coordinator of Reference Collection Development. She was a member of the American Library Association, Illinois Library Association, and the Canadian Society for the Study of Names. Lynn was Editor of the Educational Rankings Annual for years 1991-2006, and wrote numerous scholarly papers, many of which she presented as a guest speaker in a variety of international locations, including Australia, Canada, Costa Rica, Switzerland, Thailand, and the United States. She also served as the editor of a regular column on e-journals, “E-Journals-Inside and Out”, in JAHC: Journal of the Association for History and Computing.

Her 2007 paper, “From Courtesans to Queens: Recipes Named for Women”, can be found online in the archives of NAMES.

Lynn loved reading about and writing about food, and enjoyed fine dining and ethnic cuisines. She was an avid rock and fossil collector, especially the Petoskey stones found along the Michigan shoreline of Lake Michigan. She was also a passionate advocate for the protection and humane treatment of all animals, domesticated and wild.