About the ANS | American Name Society

Join the ANS

The American Name Society was founded in 1951 to promote onomastics, the study of names and naming practices, both in the United States and abroad. It is a non-profit organization that seeks to find out what really is in a name, and to investigate cultural insights, settlement history, and linguistic characteristics revealed in names. Read more about the history of the ANS, and view the complete list of ANS Presidents.

Focusing on the understanding of names in all forms, the Society provides members with several vehicles for the discussion and publication of onomastic theory, views and concepts.

An annual conference for name scholars and enthusiasts
Names: A Journal of Onomastics (view the complete list of Names editors here)

Executive Council

Luisa Caiazzo, ANS President

ANS Officers

Dr. Luisa Caiazzo, President, University of Basilicata (ITALY)

Dr. Star Vanguri, Secretary, Nova Southeastern University (USA)

Dr. Anne Anderson, Allied Conference Coordinator, (USA)

Dr. Saundra Wright, Treasurer, California State University, Chico (USA)

Dr. Sharon Obasi, Membership Officer, U niversity of Nebraska Kearney (USA)

Dr. I.M. Nick, Editor-in-Chief of Names: A Journal of Onomastics, Germanic Society for Forensic Linguistics (GERMANY)

Dr. Christine De Vinne, Book Review Editor of NAMES: A Journal of Onomastics, Ursuline College (USA)

Dr. Brandon Simonson, Information Officer, Boston University (USA)

Ms. Deborah Walker, Coordinator of the Name of the Year Election, Acrolinx (USA)

Ms. Laurel Sutton, Immediate Past President, Catchword Branding (USA)

Members at Large

Dr. Andreas Gavrielatos, University of Reading (ENGLAND): 2022-2023

Dr. Sara Louise Wheeler, Glyndŵr University (WALES): 2021-2023

Dr. Wang Feng, Yangtze University (P.R. China): 2021-2023

Auxiliary Officers

Facebook Special Interest Group Coordinators

Personal Names: Dr. Maryann Parada, California State University, Bakersfield (USA)

Place Names: Dr. Sharon Obasi, University of Nebraska Kearney (USA)

Trade Names: Dr. Mirko Casagranda, University of Calabria (ITALY)

Literary Names: Dr. Susan Behrens, Marymount Manhattan College (USA)

Awards

American Name Society Emerging Scholar Award (ANSESA)

The Emerging Scholar Award recognizes the outstanding scholarship of a names researcher in the early stages of his/her academic or professional career.

To be eligible for this award, applicants must meet the following criteria: (1) be an entry-level professional, an untenured academic, or a student; (2) have had his/her single-authored abstract accepted for presentation at the ANS annual conference; and (3) be a member of the ANS.

When submitting a paper, please refer to the ESA Style Guidelines.

The awardee receives a cash prize and mentoring by a senior onomastics scholar who will assist the awardee in preparing his/her paper for submission and possible publication in Names: A Journal of Onomastics.

Contact ANS at info[@]AmericanNameSociety.org for additional information.

View past ANSESA Winners

Allied Societies

The American Name Society is allied with the Linguistic Society of America (LSA) and the Modern Language Association (MLA).

Sister Societies

The American Name Society is a member of a group of sister societies that meet concurrently with the LSA:

American Dialect Society (ADS)
North American Association for the History of Language Sciences (NAAHoLS)
Society for Pidgin and Creole Linguistics (SPCL)
Society for the Study of the Indigenous Languages of the Americas (SSILA)
The Association for Linguistic Evidence (TALE)

Society Bylaws

Read the ANS Bylaws here.