On Irish Names and their Pronunciation

A stained glass featuring Saint Patrick at a Catholic church in Junction City, Ohio (Photo by Nheyob, CC-BY-SA4.0)

A recent article by Maureen O’Hare published on CNN Travel discusses Irish names and how the English speaking world most likely mispronounces them. The article is comprehensive and, as noted by one ANS member, offers “a fuller presentation than most journalistic articles on the subject”.

On one name, Fiadh, for example, O’Hare shares: “The girl’s name Fiadh (Fee-ah) is perhaps “the biggest Irish name of the 21st century,” says Ó Séaghdha. It was the second most popular girl’s name in Ireland in 2023, after Grace. “In the late 20th century, popular Irish names tended to come from mythology – Deirdre, Niamh, Oisín and Gráinne – but in the 21st century there’s been a shift towards adjectives” and nouns, he says. Fiadh means “grace and wildness” while Rían (Ree-an) – the fourth most popular boy’s name in Ireland last year – means “kingly.””

Read more from Maureen O’Hare over at CNN Travel.

Happy Saint Patrick’s Day!

Call for Papers: High Desert Linguistics Society 16th Biennial Meeting (1-3 November 2024)

From the High Desert Linguistics Society:

The 16th biennial High Desert Linguistics Society will take place from Friday, November 1st, through Sunday, November 3rd, 2024 at the University of New Mexico. The theme of the conference will be “Harmony in Diversity: Innovative Approaches to Language Variation and Change”. We welcome submissions for in-person or virtual presentations, posters, and panels directly related to this topic, as well as work related to cognitive linguistics, functional linguistics, typology, sociolinguistics, sign language linguistics, discourse analysis, and related fields such as anthropology, psychology, sociology, and education.

Link to abstract submission: https://easyabs.linguistlist.org/conference/HDLS16

Download the PDF of the Call for Papers here

About Names: the story behind the name “Jasmine” in Disney’s Aladdin and beyond

Cosplayers portraying Jasmine and Aladdin at a convention in 2014 (Photo by: RyC Behind the Lens, CC-BY-2.0)

Dr. Cleveland Evans writes about names for the Omaha World-Herald. In his March 10th column, he discusses the name “Jasmine”.

Remember Whitley Gilbert, spoiled “Southern belle” college student on sitcom “A Different World” (1987-1993)?

Jasmine Guy, who became famous playing Whitley, turns 62 today. She recently won an Emmy as Barbara Baldwin on streaming series “Chronicles of Jessica Wu.”

Jasmine’s the name of a genus of over 200 shrubs and vines cultivated for the beauty and aroma of their flowers. At least 13 other garden plants not in the genus are also called “jasmine” in everyday English.

The word, originally Persian “yasmin,” traveled through Arabic and French to England along with the plants around 1500. It was first “jessamine” in English, with modern “jasmine” not found until about 1575.

Though girls have been named Yasmin in the Middle East for centuries, it wasn’t until the Victorian craze for names like Daisy and Hazel that British and American parents named babies after jasmine.

The earliest examples are forms of Jessamine, probably because it resembled then-popular Jessie. Jessamine’s never been common, though variations are borne by two famous American novelists: Jessamyn West (1902-1984), whose “The Friendly Persuasion” was a 1945 bestseller; and Jesmyn Ward (born 1977), winner of the National Book Award for “Salvage the Bones” (2011) and “Sing, Unburied, Sing” (2017).

In an amazing coincidence, considering Guy’s character, the first girl named Jasmine in the United States census was Mississippi-born Jasmine Whitley (1872-1952), who married Philip MacMahon and spent most of her life in Laredo, Texas.

Missouri-born Jasmine Stone Van Dresser (1878-1948) was the first prominent Jasmine. “Jessie” in the 1880 census, after 1900 she’s always “Jasmine.” Moving to New York to attempt a stage career, she married fellow actor William Van Dresser in 1902. Though during World War I they performed plays Jasmine wrote for soldiers at military bases, she made her living writing children’s books, which William illustrated. These included “How to Find Happyland” (1907) and “Jimsey” (1925), about an interracial friendship between two girls.

The name stayed rare until 1973, when it first entered the top thousand. Name observer Abby Sandel has suggested Seals and Crofts’ 1972 hit “Summer Breeze,” with its line “blowin’ through the jasmine in my mind,” was responsible, though more importantly, Jasmine was a “different but not too different” shift from Jessica, Amanda and Kristin.

Though Jasmine had risen to 95th in 1985, Guy’s “A Different World” fame skyrocketed it. In 1991 it had almost quadrupled to rank 24th. Disney’s Princess Jasmine in “Aladdin” gave it a final push to peak at 23rd in 1993.

Jasmine’s attracted many respellings. If all those named Jasmin, Jazmin, Jazmine, Jazmyn, Jasmyn, Jasmyne, Jazzmin, etc. were added in, it would’ve ranked ninth in 1993.

About Names: Dr. Evans on the name “Sean”

“The actor Sean Astin giving a talk at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign” (Photo by Daniel Schwen, CC-BY-3.0)

Dr. Cleveland Evans writes about names for the Omaha World-Herald. In his January 28th column, he discusses the name “Sean”.

Happy birthday to Samwise Gamgee!

Actor Sean Astin, famed as Frodo’s heroic helper Sam in “The Lord of the Rings” films (2001-03) turns 53 today. His second most famous role is probably the title character in “Rudy” (1993), who achieves his dream to play Notre Dame football in the last game his senior year.

Seán’s an Irish form of John, from Hebrew “Yahweh is gracious.” When Christianity came to Ireland, John was translated “Eoin”, the form used in Gaelic language Bibles. Seán developed from French “Jean” after Normans settled in Ireland in the 12th century.

When Ireland’s English rulers suppressed Gaelic names, Seáns officially became “John.” Irish immigrants automatically translated Seán to John when speaking English, so it doesn’t reliably occur in United States censuses before 1900. One early example, Shawn MacMenamin, Irish born in 1904, lived with immigrant parents Brian and Alice in New York in 1910. He’s Shaun in 1920, but “John” when naturalized an American citizen in 1927.

Seán returned to official use in Ireland after 1900 among Irish nationalists. Two of Ireland’s greatest authors, playwright Sean O’Casey (1880-1964) and short story writer Seán Ó Faolaín (1900-1991), born John Casey and John Whelan, changed their names to support Ireland’s independence.

Highly educated artistic parents are first to revive names. The earliest census Sean with American parents was Sean Murphy (1924-2017), born in London to artists John J. A. and Cecil Murphy. Many museums feature John’s woodcuts. Sean became a Montreal ophthalmologist.

The first American-born Sean, Sean Burke (1926-2017), was born to physician J. Robert and wife Helen in Holyoke, Massachusetts. Sean, whose grandparents were all Irish-born, became a St. Petersburg, Florida, M.D.

Other Irish-Americans proud of their heritage followed the Murphys and Burkes. Sean entered the top thousand in 1943. Phonetic spellings Shawn and Shaun arrived in 1947 and 1950.

Call for Papers: “Literary Name Games: Onomastic Indices, Icons, and/or Symbols” ANS @ MLA 2025

Literary Name Games: Onomastic Indices, Icons, and/or Symbols

Writers the world over play with names of characters, places, and more to create mood, further plot, and expand meaning. In this panel, we will consider the ways in which names of characters (charactonyms), places (toponyms), and other components function as affective identifiers, as visual or aural icons, and/or as figurative symbols in literature from any era, from any narrative genre, in any media, and for readers of any age. Useful resources might include, the archives of NAMES: A Journal of Onomastics (https://ans-names.pitt.edu/ans/issue/archive), the ANS list of terminology (https://ans-names.pitt.edu/ans/keywords), Dorothy Dodge Robbins’ edited collection Literary Onomastics (2023), and the Oxford Handbook of Names and Naming (2018).

Proposal Submission Process:

  1. Email Dr. Anne W. Anderson (awanderson.editing@gmail.com).  Please place  “MLA 2025 proposal” in the subject line.   In the email body, include the title and first line of the abstract, the full name(s) of the author(s), their affiliation(s), and their email address(es).  Attach a PDF file that includes the proposal title, abstract of up to 350 words, and a brief list of works cited. Do NOT include author identification.
  2. DEADLINE: Proposals must be received by 11:59 pm EST on Friday 15 March 2024. Authors will be notified about the results of the blind review on or by 25 March 2024.
  3. Contributors selected for the thematic panel must be members of both MLA and ANS in order to present their papers; MLA membership must be obtained by 7 April 2024;
  4. Questions? Please contact Dr. Anne W. Anderson (awanderson.editing@gmail.com)

Register for the ANS Annual Meeting 2024 (via Zoom, February 17, 2024)

Registration is open for ANS 2024, which will be held on February 17, 2024. You can register online by clicking here or the following link:

https://www.americannamesociety.org/conferences/ans-2024-annual-conference-registration/

The American Name Society Annual Meeting for 2024 will be held online using the Zoom platform. It is accessible via Mac or PC. The meeting will require a passcode, which will be sent via email to all registrants and presenters by February 16th.

We have been working hard to set up a schedule that will work globally, and this means that some presenters will be scheduled at times outside of normal working hours. The schedule below is subject to change depending on speaker availability.

The Book of Abstracts will be available before the conference.

Keep apprised of any changes to the annual meeting schedule here.


Saturday, February 17, 2024

ALL TIMES ARE UTC -8:00, PACIFIC STANDARD TIME

Conference Opening Address

5:45 AM Laurel Sutton (Catchword Branding, USA), Welcome and Opening Remarks

First Session

6:00 AM Anna Tsepkova (Novosibirsk State Pedagogical University, Russia): American and Russian Nicknames of Persons, Motivated by a Combination of Linguistic and Extralinguistic Factors

6:30 AM Olga Chesnokova (RUDN University, Moscow, Russia): Ludic Representation of Toponyms in Riddles

7:00 AM Zhazira Agabekova (Nazarabayev University, Astana, Kazakhstan): The Concept of “UL” (son, child) in Kazakh Anthroponomy

Second Session

7:30 AM Halyna Matsyuk (Ivan Franko National University in Lviv, Ukraine): The linguistic landscape of Ukraine: Decolonization of geographical names associated with Russia

8:00 AM Reima Al-Jarf (King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia): To Translate or not to Translate: The Case of Arabic and Foreign Shop Names

8:30 AM Sara Racca (University of Zurich, Switzerland): From the Countryside to the Urban Outskirts: The Displacement of Old Microtoponyms in Contemporary Urbanization. An Italian Case-Study

9:00 AM Break

9:30 AM ANS Committees Meeting

Third Session

10:00 AM Deborah Ball (University of Oxford, UK): Exploring the landscape of proper names and their grammatical characteristics to understand how brand names fit in

10:30 AM Tristan Alphey (St Cross College at the University of Oxford, UK): Nicknames Maketh Man? Performing Masculinity in the Gesta Herewardi

11:00 AM Jane Pilcher (Nottingham Trent University, UK): Surnames and surnaming in families formed though adoption

Fourth Session

11:30 AM Cari Didion and Michel Nguessan (Governors State University, USA): Names, Immigration Trends and Cultural Identity: A Study Ethnic Restaurant and Grocery Store Names in Greater Chicago

12:00 PM Star Medzerian Vanguri (Nova Southeastern University, FL, USA) and Maggie M. Werner (Hobart and William Smith Colleges, NY, USA): Portmanteau Names as Ideographs

12:30 Mary Ann Walter (University of the Virgin Islands, USVI): The Persistence of Morphou: Diachronic Awareness and Usage of Toponyms in Northern Cyprus

1:00 PM Michael Akinpelu (University of Regina, Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada), Hasiyatu Abubakari (University of Ghana, Accra, Ghana) and Michel Nguessan (Governors State University, USA): Names of God and Divinities in African Languages and the Myth of Polytheism

1:30 PM ANS Annual Business Meeting and Awards Presentation 

Fifth Session

2:30 Evangeline Nwokah (Our Lady of the Lake University, USA): Clowning around with names: A linguistic comparison of hospital clown and entertainment clown names

3:00 Thomas Wickenden (Accrediting Council for Independent Colleges and Schools, retired): Reverse Reinterpretation in Dictionaries of English Place-Names: Why the origin and identity of the Hwicce remain so obscure

3:30 Sarah Bunin Benor (Hebrew Union College, USA) and Alicia B. Chandler (Wayne State University, USA): Perceptual onomastics: Survey data on Americans’ Jewishness ratings of personal names

About Names: Dr. Evans on the name “Elijah”

Elijah Wood standing outside of a fan-built replica of the Hobbit Hole from the film adaptation of The Lord of the Rings (Photo: public domain)

Dr. Cleveland Evans writes about names for the Omaha World-Herald. In his January 28th column, he discusses the name “Elijah”.

Frodo’s 43 today.

Actor Elijah Wood, famous for playing hero hobbit Frodo Baggins in the “Lord of the Rings” films, was born in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Jan. 28, 1981.

Elijah’s the modern English version of Hebrew ‘Eliyyahu, “my God is Yahweh.” The Bible’s Elijah was one of ancient Israel’s greatest prophets, preaching against wicked King Ahab and Queen Jezebel. Carried to heaven in a fiery chariot, in the New Testament he and Moses appear to Jesus in the Transfiguration.

Because of that, Elijah was the Hebrew prophet most revered by early Christians. St. Elias of Jerusalem, a fifth century patriarch, bore the Latin form of his name.

In medieval England, boys were named Ellis after the prophet and the patriarch. Families with surnames Ellis, Ellison, or Elkins descend from them.

The form Elijah didn’t occur until English Bible translations appeared during the Reformation. It was primarily used by Puritans in England. In Britain’s 1841 census, there were 4,444 Elijahs in England and only 17 in Scotland.

Elijah was even more popular with Puritans in New England. In 1851, there were 5,993 Elijahs in all of Britain, while in 1850, 22,937 lived in the United States, though total populations were similar. Puritan Massachusetts was the birthplace of 4,651 of 1850’s American Elijahs, while only 1,069 were born in Scots Irish and Quaker Pennsylvania, though Pennsylvania had more than double Massachusetts’ population.

Announcement: Best Article of the Year 2023 in Names: A Journal of Onomastics

Russell Fielding, author of the NAMES 2023 Article of the Year (Photo by Josee Cole)

The 2024 Winner of the NAMES Best Article of the Year is Dr. Russell Fielding (Photo by Josee Cole) of HTC Honours College and Center for Interdisciplinary Studies, Coastal Carolina University, Conway, South Carolina, USA. The title of his article is “‘A Change of Name During Sickness’: Surveying the Widespread Practice of Renaming in Response to Physical Illness”  [NAMES vol. 71, no. 1: 11-28].

The second place winner is “Using the ANPS Typology to Unearth the Relationship Between Japanese Sign Language (JSL) Endonymic Toponym Distribution and Regional Identity” by Johnny George of Meiji University, Department of Political Science and Economics, Tokyo, JAPAN [NAMES vol. 71, no. 3 :1-19]. The third place winner is “A Case Study of De-Russification of Ukrainian Hodonyms: Rigged Trial or Justice Restored?” by Oleksiy Gnatiuk and Anatoliy Melnychuk of the Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv in Ukraine [NAMES vol. 71, no. 4: 40-55].

ANS Annual Meeting 2024 Schedule

The American Name Society Annual Meeting for 2024 will be held online using the Zoom platform. It is accessible via Mac or PC. The meeting will require a passcode, which will be sent via email to all registrants and presenters by February 16th.

We have been working hard to set up a schedule that will work globally, and this means that some presenters will be scheduled at times outside of normal working hours. The schedule below is subject to change depending on speaker availability.

The Book of Abstracts will be available before the conference.

Keep apprised of any changes to the annual meeting schedule here.

Register for the conference here!

.


 

Saturday, February 17, 2024

ALL TIMES ARE UTC -8:00, PACIFIC STANDARD TIME

Conference Opening Address

5:45 AM Laurel Sutton (Catchword Branding, USA), Welcome and Opening Remarks

First Session

6:00 AM Anna Tsepkova (Novosibirsk State Pedagogical University, Russia): American and Russian Nicknames of Persons, Motivated by a Combination of Linguistic and Extralinguistic Factors

6:30 AM Olga Chesnokova (RUDN University, Moscow, Russia): Ludic Representation of Toponyms in Riddles

7:00 AM Zhazira Agabekova (Nazarabayev University, Astana, Kazakhstan): The Concept of “UL” (son, child) in Kazakh Anthroponomy

Second Session

7:30 AM Halyna Matsyuk (Ivan Franko National University in Lviv, Ukraine): The linguistic landscape of Ukraine: Decolonization of geographical names associated with Russia

8:00 AM Reima Al-Jarf (King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia): To Translate or not to Translate: The Case of Arabic and Foreign Shop Names

8:30 AM Sara Racca (University of Zurich, Switzerland): From the Countryside to the Urban Outskirts: The Displacement of Old Microtoponyms in Contemporary Urbanization. An Italian Case-Study

9:00 AM Break

9:30 AM ANS Committees Meeting

Third Session

10:00 AM Deborah Ball (University of Oxford, UK): Exploring the landscape of proper names and their grammatical characteristics to understand how brand names fit in

10:30 AM Tristan Alphey (St Cross College at the University of Oxford, UK): Nicknames Maketh Man? Performing Masculinity in the Gesta Herewardi

11:00 AM Jane Pilcher (Nottingham Trent University, UK): Surnames and surnaming in families formed though adoption

Fourth Session

11:30 AM Cari Didion and Michel Nguessan (Governors State University, USA): Names, Immigration Trends and Cultural Identity: A Study Ethnic Restaurant and Grocery Store Names in Greater Chicago

12:00 PM Star Medzerian Vanguri (Nova Southeastern University, FL, USA) and Maggie M. Werner (Hobart and William Smith Colleges, NY, USA): Portmanteau Names as Ideographs

12:30 Mary Ann Walter (University of the Virgin Islands, USVI): The Persistence of Morphou: Diachronic Awareness and Usage of Toponyms in Northern Cyprus

1:00 PM Michael Akinpelu (University of Regina, Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada),  Hasiyatu Abubakari (University of Ghana, Accra, Ghana) and Michel Nguessan (Governors State University, USA): Names of God and Divinities in African Languages and the Myth of Polytheism

1:30 PM ANS Annual Business Meeting and Awards Presentation

Fifth Session

2:30 Evangeline Nwokah (Our Lady of the Lake University, USA): Clowning around with names: A linguistic comparison of hospital clown and entertainment clown names

3:00 Thomas Wickenden (Accrediting Council for Independent Colleges and Schools, retired): Reverse Reinterpretation in Dictionaries of English Place-Names: Why the origin and identity of the Hwicce remain so obscure

3:30 Sarah Bunin Benor (Hebrew Union College, USA) and Alicia B. Chandler (Wayne State University, USA): Perceptual onomastics: Survey data on Americans’ Jewishness ratings of personal names

 

 

“Gaza” and “Barbie” Chosen as Joint 2023 Names of the Year

“GAZA” AND “BARBIE” CHOSEN AS JOINT 2023 NAMES OF THE YEAR

“Gaza” and “Barbie” were chosen as the joint winners of the Name of the Year for 2023 by the American Name Society at its annual Name of the Year discussion and vote on January 4, 2024. The pairing of these names neatly captures the dichotomy of 2023: the reality of Gaza, the tragedy of another war in the Middle East, and the escapism of Barbie, a comedy movie about a classic toy that imagines a doll embracing feminism. Despite runoff votes, ANS members could not choose a winner, a rare event in the Name of the Year vote; these two names perfectly represent the zeitgeist of 2023, as well as two different types of contested spaces.

“Swiftie” was chosen as Personal Name of the Year. “Swiftie” is the self-identifying term for fans of Taylor Swift, a neologism that is a modification of Swift’s name. The term was quickly picked up and used by the media. Linguistically, it employs the diminutive ending “-ie”, which is a particularly productive pattern in pop culture (e.g., Trekkie for Star Trek fans, Durannie for Duran Duran fans); unlike many new words in pop culture, it has shown impressive longevity, being first attested in 2010. In 2017, Taylor Swift even trademarked the name for commercial usage, making it an interesting brand name as well. Other candidates in this category included Taylor Swift, Vivek Ramaswamy, George Santos, and Sheynnis Alondra Palacios Cornejo.

“Gaza” was voted Place Name of the Year. Gaza is the name for the stretch of land between Egypt and Israel, and has become shorthand for the ongoing Israel/Hamas War. Its Hebrew name is “Azzah”, meaning “strength” and its Arabic name is “Ghazzah”. It refers not only to the geographic region, but is now regularly used to refer to the current humanitarian disaster happening there. Other candidates in this category included Maui, Palestine, and Haudenosaunee Confederacy.

“ChatGPT” won the title Brand Name of the Year. The name of OpenAI’s artificial intelligence tool is a compound of the word “chat”, referring to the chatbot, and the initialism “GPT”, for “Generative Pre-trained Transformer”. It promises an interaction with AI as simple and casual as having a chat with a friend, while retaining the mystery of technical jargon that most people do not understand. Other candidates in this category included Discord, Ozempic, and OceanGate.

“Barbenheimer” was chosen Artistic Name of the Year. It is portmanteau of the movie titles Barbie and Oppenheimer, which opened on the same weekend in 2023. The name arose organically and captured the trend of people going to see both movies sequentially, and inspired Halloween costumes, memes, and fake movie trailers. It became a cultural phenomenon because of the huge success of both films, along with their wildly contrasting images of a fantasy comedy built on the Barbie doll vs. a very serious Oppenheimer biopic dealing with nuclear holocaust. Other candidates in this category included The Eras Tour, Barbie, and Renaissance (Beyoncé’s tour and movie).

“X” was voted E-Name of the Year. The attempted—and mostly failed—rebranding/debranding of Twitter by new owner Elon Musk illustrates the extreme difficulty of using a single letter as a brand. It was also a case study in the sacrifice of a tremendously valuable brand (the name Twitter, the verb “tweet”, the blue bird iconography) for the sake of a purportedly “edgy” and “disruptive” brand. Other candidates in this category included the hashtag #freepalestine, OpenAI, and Lu Do Magalu (a popular Brazilian virtual influencer).

The American Name Society is a scholarly organization founded in 1951 devoted to studying all aspects of names and naming. The Name of the Year vote has been held since 2004.

The 2022 Name of the Year was “Ukraine”, and “Great Resignation” won for 2021.

The 2020 Name of the Year was jointly held by “Kamala” and “COVID-19.” “Brexit” was Name of the Decade and “Arrokoth” was the 2019 Name of the Year. “Jamal Khashoggi” won for 2018, “Rohingya” for 2017, “Aleppo“ for 2016 , “Caitlyn Jenner” for 2015, “Ferguson” for 2014, “Francis” for 2013, and “Sandy” for 2012.

For further information contact Laurel Sutton, ANS President and Chair of the Name of the Year committee, at laurel@suttonstrategy.com, 510-501-2580.

A downloadable PDF of this press release is available here.