ANS Member Research: “Names, Immigration Trends and Cultural Identity: A Study Ethnic Restaurant and Grocery Store Names in Greater Chicago” by Michel Nguessan and Cari Didion

Recently presented at the 2024 Annual Meeting of the American Name Society, collaborative work by Cari Didion and Michel Nguessan explores restaurant and grocery store names in the greater Chicago metro area. You can watch the full presentation here:

Watch this video on YouTube by clicking here.

 

Abstract:

The paper is an analysis of restaurant and grocery store names in Greater Chicago. In the USA, the dominant culture is the Anglo-Saxon and/or European culture. Any other culture that is different from this dominant one is considered ethnic.  Restaurants and food stores that are not part of the dominant culture are considered ethnic. With the increase and diversification of immigration to the USA in recent decades, new restaurants/grocery stores emerge with distinctive names that reveal cultural identities and/or national origins.  The study’s purpose is to find out about cultural/national origins and identities, immigration trends and spatial distribution of these restaurants/food stores in the Greater Chicago area.

These ethnic restaurants/grocery stores come from diverse cultural and national origins including Asia, Latin America, Africa, Middle East, pacific islands, and others. Some ethnic restaurants/grocery store names are Fogo de Chão (Brazilian), Taste of Lebanon (Lebanese), Nhà Hàng Vietnam (Vietnamese), Ay Ay Picante (Peruvian), Denden Eritrean restaurant (Eritrea).  The first part of the paper discusses the relationship between immigration trends and the emergence of ethnic restaurants/grocery stores. The second part of the paper presents and discusses ethnic restaurants and grocery store names. The third part of the paper discusses the relationship between immigration trends, ethnic restaurant names and diversity of cultures and national origins in Greater Chicago. The study concludes that ethnic restaurant and grocery store names reveal immigration trends, national and cultural origins and identities and point out the cultural diversity and spatial distribution of immigrant populations in Greater Chicago.

 

Biography:

Professor Michel Nguessan is an Associate Professor of Library and Information Science at Governors State University, in Illinois. He has academic background and research interest in linguistics/onomastics, software engineering and computer science, library and information science and port/maritime management.  He graduated from universities in Côte-d’Ivoire, the USA and Canada.

Professor Cari Didion is an Associate Professor of Library and Information Science at Governors State University, in Illinois. She has an academic background in science education, library and information science, and higher education leadership. She holds master’s degrees from the University of Georgia and San Jose State University and is currently pursuing a doctorate in Interdisciplinary Leadership Studies.

 

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https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL9UPV3RkICwd7ojIQwxUtxO-0tL90SDY7

Join the American Name Society:

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ANS Member Research: “Surnames and surnaming in families formed though adoption” by Jane Pilcher

Recently presented at the 2024 Annual Meeting of the American Name Society, Jane Pilcher’s work explores surnames and surnaming in adoption. You can watch the full presentation here:

Watch this video on YouTube by clicking here.

 

Abstract:

In this talk, we present new data about adoptive family surnames drawn from our qualitative study in the UK which examines names in the experiences of adults who are either adoptees or adopters. Our findings suggest that adoptees and adopters can feel differently about surnames and how these link them – or otherwise – to familial lineages and to their own individual identities. Some adoptees may feel that their adoptive family surname does not link them authentically to that genealogical familial line or at least is disruptive for their sense of family identity. At marriage, some women adoptees were pleased to change their surname to that of their husband, as this meant they were able to exercise choice about their name-based familial identity and affiliation that had been denied them in the past. Yet other adoptees reported feeling happily connected to their adoptive family surname. For adoptees who had become parents themselves, sharing a surname with their child (and so across another generation) had made their adoptive surname meaningful to them in a way that it had not been previously. For participants who were adopters, sharing a surname with their child(ren) was also a key part of their family identity, including through extending the genealogical line. In examining these types of experiences of and feelings about family names amongst adult adoptees and amongst adopters, our article highlights the complexities of meanings of surnames for adoptive family life and for adoptees’ identities.

 

Biography:

Dr. Jane Pilcher is Associate Professor of Sociology at Nottingham Trent University in the UK. As a self-described sociological names nerd, Jane studies people’s names to analyse, understand and deconstruct identities and inequalities. Her current project examines names and naming in experiences of adoption.

 

Find our YouTube channel here:

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Watch the rest of the 2024 Annual Meeting videos here:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL9UPV3RkICwd7ojIQwxUtxO-0tL90SDY7

Join the American Name Society:

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ANS Member Research: “Exploring the landscape of proper names and their grammatical characteristics to understand how brand names fit in” by Deborah Ball

Recently presented at the 2024 Annual Meeting of the American Name Society, Deborah Ball’s work explores proper names and their grammatical characteristics. You can watch the presentation here:

Watch this video on YouTube by clicking here.

 

Abstract:

The category of proper names is quite varied and includes personal names, place names, company names, brand names, organisations, historical events, book and film titles, and numerous other sub-categories such as ships, swords, diseases, etc. Although the literature on the linguistics of proper names is filled with examples of personal names, as well as place names and other kinds of proper names to a lesser extent, the focus of the research and discussion leans heavily towards onomastics (history and use), semantics (meaning and/or reference) and morphology (word-formation).  Much less can be found on the grammar of proper names.  However, what can be found describes the importance of grammatical indicators displayed by proper names in speech and in writing, in helping us to make correct interpretations between those proper names and other kinds of words such as common nouns.  It appears that proper names can range from being clearly proper names to being ambiguously so, and where there is ambiguity, there is grammar to point us in the right direction.  Key grammatical indicators, at least in the English language, include the presence/absence of determiners and singularity/plurality.  Although most proper names behave in a similar way grammatically, each sub-category has its own personality, and there are of course numerous exceptions. Understanding these differences will help form a better understanding of the particularities of brand names.

 

Biography:

Deborah Ball has been working in branding, content, marketing and communications for nearly 10 years in the UK and the US.  One special focus has been brand naming. This was a source of inspiration for a part-time PhD with the University of Oxford researching the linguistics of brand names.​

 

Find our YouTube channel here:

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Watch the rest of the 2024 Annual Meeting videos here:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL9UPV3RkICwd7ojIQwxUtxO-0tL90SDY7

Join the American Name Society:

https://www.americannamesociety.org/membership/

ANS Member Research: “From the Countryside to the Urban Outskirts: Displacement of Old Microtoponyms” by Sara Racca

Recently presented at the 2024 Annual Meeting of the American Name Society, Sara Racca’s work explores the displacement of microtoponyms in Italy. You can watch the presentation here:

Watch this video on YouTube here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DclAbiTEUDs

 

Abstract:

Place names are usually studied for their stability over time, that makes them ‘linguistic fossils’ informing us about previous stages of languages and people who spoke them on a certain territory. Furthermore, the study of their etymology unveils landscapes’ features that may have changed over time. However, while the relevance of the etymological study is undisputed, sometimes it can misdirect: over time, a toponym can “move” from its original place to a new location somehow related to the previous one. Thus, the semiotic relationship between toponym and referent falls apart, so that the study of etymology is no longer sufficient, and it becomes necessary to reconstruct the motivation that led to the displacement. This proposal presents the case study of some place names collected in an Italian town. Specifically, they are vernacular microtoponyms originally referring to rural areas, which, due to a process related to the role of contemporary hodonymy, have come to indicate suburbs of the town located a few hundred meters from the original place. The process is driven by the need to find new names for new urbanized areas, and can be found probably in other contexts with similar needs. The displacement, however, is in progress: inhabitants use the investigated toponyms to refer whether to the original rural areas or the new suburbs, depending on their socio-demographical characteristics. Therefore, the research captured the (perhaps transitional) time in which, in a sense, the identity of those place names is under redefinition.

Biography:

Sara Racca is a Postdoc at the priority program Language and Space, University of Zurich (Switzerland), where she is also affiliated with the Department of Geography. She obtained her PhD in Dialectology, Geolinguistics and Sociolinguistics in Turin (Italy) in 2022. In the field of onomastics, her main interests concern urban and sociotoponomastics.

 

Find our YouTube channel here:

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Watch the rest of the 2024 Annual Meeting videos here:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL9UPV3RkICwd7ojIQwxUtxO-0tL90SDY7

Join the American Name Society:

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ANS Member Research: “To Translate or not to Translate: The Case of Arabic and Foreign Shop Names” by Reima Al-Jarf

Recently presented at the 2024 Annual Meeting of the American Name Society, Reima Al-Jarf’s work explores Arabic and foreign shop names in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. You can watch the presentation here:

Watch this video on YouTube here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oK7NK4q7vi8

 

Abstract:

The translatability of shop names constitutes a problem for translation students. To find out the status of shop name translation in Saudi Arabia, a corpus of 500 shop names (clothing, accessories, beauty products, restaurants, cafes… etc.) was collected and analyzed to find out which shop names are translated, which are not, and which should be translated. Results showed that 24% of the shops have pure Arabic names, 25% have international brand names such as Starbucks, Burger King, McDonald’s, Pizza Hut, Monsoon, Zara, Sony which are not translated, i.e., used as they are. 39% have English names created by the shop owners such as أو ﺑ ﺮﯾ ﺸﻦ ﻓ ﻼﻓ ﻞ , ﺑﺮ اﻧﺪ ﺳﻨﺘﺮ , ﺑﯿﺒ ﻲ ﺷ ﻮ ب which were not translated. Some foreign shop names were transliterated using Arabic letters although such names have Arabic equivalents as in دﻛ ﺘ ﻮرﻧﯿ ﻮﺗ ﺮﯾ ﺸﻦ , ﻧﺎﺗ ﺸ ﺮ ا ل ﺗﺎﺗ ﺶ , ﻧﺴﻜﺎﻓﯿﮫ دوﻟ ﺲ ﻗ ﻮﺳﺘ ﻮ , أد ﻓﻨﺘ ﻮرا , ﺟﺎ رﻟﯿ ﺸﻮز ﻻو ﻧ ﺞ , أﻣ ﯿ ﺮﯾ ﻜﺎ ن إﯾ ﺠﻞ أ وﺗﻔﺘ ﺮز , ﻛﯿ ﺴﺮ ي ﻛﺎﻓﯿ ﮫ , إﺳ ﺒ ﺮﯾ ﺖ , أﻛﺴﺴﻮرﯾ ﺰ , ﺑﺎﯾ ﻠﯿ ﺲ , ﺑﺎر ﺑ ﻜﯿ ﻮﺗ ﻮﻧﺎﯾ ﺖ . Names in this category should be translated as they were difficult for the subjects to decode. However, subjects could decode ﻣﺎ ﻛﺪوﻧﺎﻟ ﺪ ر، ﺑﯿ ﺮﻏﺮ ﻛﯿﻨ ﺞ، ھﺎ ردﯾ ﺰ، ﻛﻮﺳﺘﺎ، ﺳﺎ رﺑ ﻜ ﺲ . . Shop workers believe that use of foreign names without translation is more prestigious, attracts shoppers’ attention more than Arabic names, and more customers can be reached. They also gave globalization factors that affect the preference for foreign words to Arabic equivalents and poor knowledge of Arabic equivalents, especially for new coinages. Guidelines for translating foreign and native shop names will be given based on the views of a sample of translation students and instructors.

Biography:

Prof. Reima Al-Jarf is professor of English and translation studies. She has 700 publications and conference presentations in 70 countries. She reviews Ph.D. theses, promotion works, conference and grant proposals, and articles for numerous peer-reviewed international journals including Web of Science and Scopus journals. She presented at ANS and CNS twice.

 

Find our YouTube channel here:

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Watch the rest of the 2024 Annual Meeting videos here:

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Join the American Name Society:

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ANS Member Research: “The Concept of ‘UL’ (son, child) in Kazakh Anthroponomy” by Zhazira Agabekova

Recently presented at the 2024 Annual Meeting of the American Name Society, Zhazira Agabekova’s work explores the concept of “UL” (son, child), in Kazakh anthropology. You can watch the presentation here:

Watch this video on YouTube here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_13QFm2AhQ

 

Abstract:

In the Kazakh language, there are many names with the root “ul” (meaning “son”, “child”), such as Ulbosyn (let it be a son), Ulzhalgas (next will be a son), Ultusyn (wishing to give birth to a son). These names are given if a family had only daughters, and with the intention that after several girls born in a family, the next child will be a boy (names that indicated the family’s expectation of having boys). This is because historically, the boy was treated as the main breadwinner of the family and the protector of the people, the continuation of the generation, and the birth of a son in the family was important. This shows that the concept of patriarchy still prevails in Kazakh culture. Beyond that lies gender inequality. Although the number of names in the “ul” (son) context has decreased somewhat, the process has not stopped. This article hypothesizes that the use of names in the context of “ul” indicates that the role of men in the Kazakh society is higher than that of women. In order to prove it, linguistic lexemes and proverbs in the culture of the people are considered as the main linguistic facts. The number of these names changes in the different regions of Kazakhstan. These differences (frequency) are based not only on the population density, but also depends on the fact of observing Kazakhs traditions. The findings of this research will help better understand the concept of “ul”, and the analysis shows the importance of studying Kazakh names with root “ul”, which refers to existing gender inequality and gender norms in Kazakh society.

Biography:

Zhazira Agabekova is Assistant Professor of Nazarbayev University, Candidate of Philological Sciences. Her scientific area is Turkic Studies, Linguistics, Onomastics, Gender studies. Currently, Zhazira is focused on gender issues in onomastics. She is a member of the Onomastic Commission under the Government of the Republic of Kazakhstan.

 

Find our YouTube channel here:

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Watch the rest of the 2024 Annual Meeting videos here:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL9UPV3RkICwd7ojIQwxUtxO-0tL90SDY7

Join the American Name Society:

https://www.americannamesociety.org/membership/

ANS Member Research: “Ludic Representation of Toponyms in Riddles” by Olga Chesnokova

Recently presented at the 2024 Annual Meeting of the American Name Society, Olga Chesnokova’s work explores ludic representations of toponyms in riddles. You can watch the presentation here:

Watch this video on YouTube here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OOtPOJTzU6o

 

Abstract:

Each culture possesses riddles about toponyms. The hypothesis of this study is that riddles about cities and their names create a ludic image of toponyms, and each riddle text acts as a topographical image and a sign of collective memory, actively developing nowadays on the internet. The investigation of Spanish, Argentinian and Russian riddles about cities proves that they form a system of internal architectonics and create a ludic image in the range from the direct question “What city”: What city is located on 101 islands? (Saint-Petersburg), to diverse metaphors and personifications: En el mapa de Argentina ¿cuál es la provincia que nunca camina?’ (Salta), and complex sound symbols riddles with a fictional plot: El rey Alí /Fue con su can/A tomar té/¿a qué ciudad? (Alicante). Riddles about cities typically praise the cities; no critical or derogatory features of the ludic descriptions were found. The city image in riddles is always positive and combines real topographical features, elements of touristic discourse, cultural associations; all together creating a system of topographic images on the principles of direct questions, polysemy, homonymy, folk etymology, sound symbolism, and allusions to well-known proverbs. Descriptive riddles are typical for all studied cultures; however, a greater diversity was found for the Spanish and Argentinian cultures. Riddles based on sound symbolism are also more characteristic of the Hispanic tradition, which is obviously due to the letter-sound structure of the Spanish place names.

Biography:

Olga Chesnokova (Doctor in Romance Philology) is Full-time Spanish Professor at the Department of Foreign Languages at RUDN University and author of more than 200 publications on Hispanic Onomastics, Literary Text translation, and particularities of Spanish in Latin America.

 

Find our YouTube channel here:

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Watch the rest of the 2024 Annual Meeting videos here:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL9UPV3RkICwd7ojIQwxUtxO-0tL90SDY7

Join the American Name Society:

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ANS Member Research: “American and Russian Nicknames of Persons” by Anna Tsepkova

Recently presented at the 2024 Annual Meeting of the American Name Society, Anna Tsepkova’s work explores American and Russian Nicknames. You can watch the presentation here:

Watch this video on YouTube here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fta5mEFLt5s

 

Abstract:

Nicknames of persons coined by means of mixing linguistic and extralinguistic motives form a unique group of unconventional anthroponyms performing identifying and characterizing functions by means of combining a person’s official name with lexemes referring to qualities, attributes, situations associated with nickname-bearers. These nicknames are formed by means of:

  • substituting a name by an appellative sounding similar (false etymology): Madison from Maddie + “always mad at something” (US); Парадокс / Paradox from Paradovsky + an irregular person (Rus);
  • substituting a last name by an appellative reviving its etymology: Blood from Trueblood + “a cool head under stressful situations” (US); Goose from Goosev + appearance (Rus);
  • blending a name with an appellative: Encyclo’pete’ia from Pete + “no matter what you talked about he thought he was an expert on it…” (US); Olgushonok from Olga + lyagushka [frog]: cold limbs (Rus);
  • inevitable associations with a famous name / person: Marco Polo from Mark + “always looking for an adventure” (US);
  • meaningful abbreviations of first, middle/patronymic, last names: M&M: “because I love M&Ms and m is the first letter in my first and last name” (US); ОМ from initials of the teacher of physics / reference to Ohm (Rus).

If small in number (46 nicknames / 5.5% in the American sample; 54 / 1.5% in the Russian sample), this group is the most diverse in terms of coinage patterns, demonstrating the phenomenon of linguistic creativity, aimed at catching and carrying multifaceted audio-visual and emotional experiences of human interaction.

Biography:

Anna Tsepkova is an Associate Professor in the English Language Department at Novosibirsk State Pedagogical University (Siberian region of Russia) and has a PhD in Philology. She is a Fulbright Alumna, a member of ICOS and the ANS. She is currently working on “A Cross-Cultural Dictionary of American and Russian Nicknames”

 

Find our YouTube channel here:

https://www.youtube.com/@americannamesociety5739

Watch the rest of the 2024 Annual Meeting videos here:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL9UPV3RkICwd7ojIQwxUtxO-0tL90SDY7

Join the American Name Society:

https://www.americannamesociety.org/membership/

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

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