The American Name Society (ANS) is now issuing its first call for abstracts for an upcoming Special issue of the Society’s journal, NAMES: A Journal of Onomastics.

One of the most fascinating areas of interdisciplinary research involving onomastics,  criminology, and the law is forensic onomastics. The current call for paper proposals for original pieces of research for an upcoming Special Issue of NAMES devoted to this branch of onomastic investigation.   Possible topics of interest include but are not limited to the following:

1. The names and naming of crimes, criminals, and/or victims.
2. Crimes involving the illegal use of names (e.g. identity theft/fraud; trademark infringement, verbal threats involving malicious name-calling; the use of modern investigative technology to uncover the names of unknown crime victims and crime perpetrators in cold cases)
3. The names of laws and policies at any level of governance.
4. Laws and policies governing the use or alteration of names
5. Strategies for the translation of names in forensic contexts
6. The clandestine names used by criminals and/or illegal organizations, both online and offline
7. The ways in which the media uses names to discuss crimes, crime victims, and criminal offenders
8. Official strategies or policies used by law enforcement to analyze, process, or store public onomastic data
9. Legal cases fought over names (e.g., the right to use a product name; lawsuits over potentially pejorative names)
10. Naming policies and practices of governmental organizations devoted to names and naming (e.g. regulations for naming national monuments; policies for naming meteorological events (e.g., fires, storms, earthquakes, tidal waves etc.); guidelines for naming geographical features (e.g., bodies of water, mountains, hills, streams, land masses) or structures (canals, levies, dams, etc.); (inter)national policies for naming zoological and/or botanical species

Proposals for research examining any name type, during any period of time, are welcome.  Although all proposals must be written in English, the papers proposed may involve any language(s), spoken, written, or signed.  Both diachronic and synchronic approaches are invited. Investigations may also employ qualitative, quantitative, or mixed methods. Data relevant to either criminal or civil law may be examined.   However, the analysis proposed must be clearly on focused on the onomastic data.  Proposals will be judged upon their thematic fit as well as their potential to make a substantive fact-based contribution to both forensic linguistics and onomastics.  All Interested authors are asked to submit their formal proposals using the following guidelines.

Proposal Submission Process

• Abstract proposals (max. 800 words, not including references) should be sent as an email attachment (PDF format) to Professor I. M. Nick (nameseditor@gmail.com);
• Proposals must include a preliminary reference list that follows the formatting regulations of the NAMES Style Sheet;
• Proposals must include “FORENSICS” in the subject line of the email;
• All proposals must include an abstract, a tentative title, the full name(s) of the author(s), the author(s) affiliation(s), and email address(s) in the accompanying email and NOT within the body of the abstract;
• DEADLINE: Proposals must be received by August 31, 2025.
• All proposals will be submitted to a double-blind review process. Authors will be notified about acceptance on or by September 15, 2025
• Final chapters (max 7,000 words, excluding abstracts, graphics, and references) will be due November 15, 2025

For further information about this call, please feel free to contact Professor I. M. Nick (nameseditor@gmail.com).