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Featured
Call for Papers: 2027 Annual Meeting of the ANS, February 20, 2027 (Online, via Zoom)
Call for Papers
The 2027 Annual Meeting of the
American Name Society
ONLINE (via Zoom)
20 February 2027
The American Name Society is now inviting proposals for papers for its next annual conference. The one-day event will be held virtually via Zoom, allowing for the attendance of onomastics scholars from around theworld. The 2027 ANS conference will not be held in conjunction with the Linguistics Society of America conference.
Abstracts in any area of onomastic research are welcome: personal names, place names, business and institutional names, names theory, names in literature, among others.
Proposals require these elements:
- Title of proposed paper
- 250-word abstract
- Shorter 100-word abstract suitable for inclusion in conference program
- 50-word biography suitable for inclusion in conference program
To submit a proposal, complete the 2027 Author Information Form found here:
Email completed forms to the ANS at: abstracts@americannamesociety.org
For organizational purposes, place “ANS2027” in the subject of your email.
The DEADLINE for receipt of abstracts is October 31, 2026.
All proposals will be subjected to blind review. Notification of proposal acceptances will be sent by November 15, 2026. Authors whose papers have been accepted must be current members of ANS and must register for the annual meeting. Please contact us at info@americannamesociety.org if you have any questions or concerns.
We look forward to receiving your submission!
Repost: Call for Papers: Academics on Fire: Controversies over (Re)Naming Educational Institutions (ANS Panel @ LSA 2027, San Francisco, 6-9 January 2027)
Call for Papers
Academics on Fire: Controversies over
(Re)Naming Educational Institutions
an organized session at the 2027 annual meeting of the
Linguistic Society of America
San Francisco, California
6-9 January 2027
The American Name Society is now inviting proposals for an organized session at the 2027 annual meeting of the Linguistic Society of America. Throughout the world, names have been strategically used by decision-makers to communicate important messages to members and visitors about the unique history, culture, and values of their educational institutions. From the names of buildings, campuses, memorials, and halls, academic programs, and scholarships, to social or service-based organizations such as fraternities, sororities, and honor societies, these institutional names are ubiquitous markers of everyday campus life. However, these institutional names are more than simple signposts. They are part of the academic curricula that may surreptitiously inculcate the norms of the educational institution and the surrounding social environment. It is precisely for this reason that retention or abolition of these names can become the catalyst for heated public debate. As recent years have demonstrated, controversies over the official values and political orientations of many educational sites have ignited blistering debates over long-standing institutional names. The purpose of this Session is to invite papers which specifically examine the role which naming and renaming can play in these fights over institutional identities in educational settings. Suggested topics include, but are not limited to, the following:
- Uncovering the history institutional namesakes and discussion of the contemporary fall-out over the (dis)continued use of their names for educational institutions
- Discussing the (dis)advantages of eponyms as institutional brand names
- Examining strategies used by educational institutions to decide whether to retain or change controversial institutional names
- Comparing the demographic profiles of persons or corporations whose names have and have not been chosen to label an educational institution
- Contrasting the assortment of institutional names used by different educational bodies
- Identifying diachronic or synchronic variation in the institutional names selected or rejected across or within various educational bodies
There are no restrictions regarding the time period, methodological approach, theoretical framework, language, country, or level of educational institution examined. Qualitative, quantitative, and mixed method investigation are all equally welcome. However, the analysis presented must be clearly focused on names and naming. Any use of artificial intelligence (AI) should be disclosed at the end of the proposal.
Proposals require these elements:
- Name and affiliation of presenter(s)
- Title of proposed paper
- Up to 250-word abstract
Proposals should be submitted to the American Name Society via email at: abstracts@americannamesociety.org. For organizational purposes, place “LSA2027” in the subject of your email.
The DEADLINE for receipt of abstracts is August 31, 2026.
All proposals will be subjected to blind review. Notification of proposal acceptances will be sent by September 15, 2026. Following acceptance, authors must be current members of the ANS and register for the Linguistic Society of America annual meeting. Please contact us at the above email address if you have any questions or concerns.
Scheduling of the symposium by the LSA will be announced in October 2026. Pre-registration for the meeting will open in late September 2026.
We look forward to receiving your submission!
Call for Papers: Academics on Fire: Controversies over (Re)Naming Educational Institutions (ANS Panel @ LSA 2027, San Francisco, 6-9 January 2027)
Call for Papers
Academics on Fire: Controversies over
(Re)Naming Educational Institutions
an organized session at the 2027 annual meeting of the
Linguistic Society of America
San Francisco, California
6-9 January 2027
The American Name Society is now inviting proposals for an organized session at the 2027 annual meeting of the Linguistic Society of America. Throughout the world, names have been strategically used by decision-makers to communicate important messages to members and visitors about the unique history, culture, and values of their educational institutions. From the names of buildings, campuses, memorials, and halls, academic programs, and scholarships, to social or service-based organizations such as fraternities, sororities, and honor societies, these institutional names are ubiquitous markers of everyday campus life. However, these institutional names are more than simple signposts. They are part of the academic curricula that may surreptitiously inculcate the norms of the educational institution and the surrounding social environment. It is precisely for this reason that retention or abolition of these names can become the catalyst for heated public debate. As recent years have demonstrated, controversies over the official values and political orientations of many educational sites have ignited blistering debates over long-standing institutional names. The purpose of this Session is to invite papers which specifically examine the role which naming and renaming can play in these fights over institutional identities in educational settings. Suggested topics include, but are not limited to, the following:
- Uncovering the history institutional namesakes and discussion of the contemporary fall-out over the (dis)continued use of their names for educational institutions
- Discussing the (dis)advantages of eponyms as institutional brand names
- Examining strategies used by educational institutions to decide whether to retain or change controversial institutional names
- Comparing the demographic profiles of persons or corporations whose names have and have not been chosen to label an educational institution
- Contrasting the assortment of institutional names used by different educational bodies
- Identifying diachronic or synchronic variation in the institutional names selected or rejected across or within various educational bodies
There are no restrictions regarding the time period, methodological approach, theoretical framework, language, country, or level of educational institution examined. Qualitative, quantitative, and mixed method investigation are all equally welcome. However, the analysis presented must be clearly focused on names and naming. Any use of artificial intelligence (AI) should be disclosed at the end of the proposal.
Proposals require these elements:
- Name and affiliation of presenter(s)
- Title of proposed paper
- Up to 250-word abstract
Proposals should be submitted to the American Name Society via email at: abstracts@americannamesociety.org. For organizational purposes, place “LSA2027” in the subject of your email.
The DEADLINE for receipt of abstracts is August 31, 2026.
All proposals will be subjected to blind review. Notification of proposal acceptances will be sent by September 15, 2026. Following acceptance, authors must be current members of the ANS and register for the Linguistic Society of America annual meeting. Please contact us at the above email address if you have any questions or concerns.
Scheduling of the symposium by the LSA will be announced in October 2026. Pre-registration for the meeting will open in late September 2026.
We look forward to receiving your submission!
Announcement: Best Article of the Year 2025 in NAMES: A Journal of Onomastics
In the Winter of each year, the members of the NAMES Editorial Board review and select the best article of the year. Articles are judged across three criteria: 1.) creativity and originality; 2.) potential scholarly contribution to onomastics; and 3.) writing style and organization. For 2025, the international team of onomastic experts on the NAMES Board selected “Mapping Place Names” for the prestigious award. The winning publication was co-authored by Søren Wichmann and Lennart Chevallier of the University of Kiel in Germany.
The article appears in the volume 74, no. 3 of NAMES, accessible here. This cutting-edge piece of research was selected for its innovative methodological approach, exemplary use of dynamic and highly informative graphics, as well as its concise yet engaging scientific writing. This outstanding piece of research can be read online, free of charge, via the NAMES website. While there, names enthusiasts are encouraged to explore the journal’s open-access archive where all publications featured in NAMES are freely available to the international scientific community and general public.
American Name Society Annual Meeting 2026 Tomorrow! (Virtual, February 21, 2026)
ANS 2026 will be held virtually tomorrow, February 21, 2026. Registration is now open here. There is a new conference fee structure that is discounted based on annual income. Read more about the conference fee structure here.
Event Details
The American Name Society Annual Meeting for 2026 will be held online on February 21, 2026 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 20th.
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 agenda for the meeting includes presentations by onomastic scholars from around the world, along with our annual Business Meeting and a report on the state of our journal, NAMES. All are welcome to the conference — you do not need to be a member to attend!
The Book of Abstracts is available for download here.
We hope to see you there!
Event URL:
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/american-name-society-annual-meeting-2026-tickets-1980904507707
American Name Society Annual Meeting 2026 Registration and Schedule (Via Zoom, February 21, 2026)
The 2026 ANS Annual Conference will be held online, via Zoom, on 21 February 2026. Registration is now open here. There is a new conference fee structure that is discounted based on annual income. Read more about the conference fee structure here.
Event Details
The American Name Society Annual Meeting for 2026 will be held online on February 21, 2026 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 20th.
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 agenda for the meeting includes presentations by onomastic scholars from around the world, along with our annual Business Meeting and a report on the state of our journal, NAMES. All are welcome to the conference — you do not need to be a member to attend!
The Book of Abstracts will be available here before the conference.
Click here to see the preliminary schedule of presentations and meetings
We hope to see you there!
Event URL:
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/american-name-society-annual-meeting-2026-tickets-1980904507707
Call for Papers: Names That Reveal; Names That Conceal: Onomastic Sleight of Hand in Global Literature (MLA 2027)
The American Name Society
Call for Papers
for the ANS virtual panel at the
Modern Language Association (MLA) Convention #mla27
7-10 January 2027, Los Angeles, California
Names That Reveal; Names That Conceal
Onomastic Sleight of Hand in Global Literature
Espionage novels and allegories often use names to conceal motives or plot twists or to reveal character or caricature. How have authors, poets, playwrights, screenwriters, lyricists and other wordsmiths used names of characters, places, corporations, institutions, movements, etc., to effect onomastic sleight of hand? And why? In this panel, we will consider names that reveal and names that conceal people groups (anthroponyms), characters (charactonyms), places (toponyms), theonyms (divine beings), events, and more in the real world and/or in imagined worlds from any era, from any place, as recorded or found in any media. Useful resources 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), Star Medzerian Vanguri’s edited collection Rhetorics of Names and Naming (2016), and the Oxford Handbook of Names and Naming(2018).
Proposal Submission Process:
- Email Dr. Anne W. Anderson (awanderson.editing@gmail.com) as follows:
- Email Subject Line: Use “MLA 2027 proposal” in the subject line of the email.
- Email Body: 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).
- Proposal: Attach a PDF file that includes the proposal title, an abstract of up to 350-500 words, and a list of works cited. Do NOT include author identification in the PDF.
- DEADLINE: Proposals must be received by 11:59 pm EST on Monday, 16 March 2026. Authors will be notified about the results of the blind review on or by 27 March 2026.
- Contributors selected for the thematic panel must be members of both MLA and ANS in order to present their papers; both memberships must be obtained by 7 April 2026.
- Questions? Please contact Dr. Anne W. Anderson (awanderson.editing@gmail.com).
“No Kings” is the ANS Name of the Year for 2025
“No Kings” was chosen as the winner of the Name of the Year for 2025 by the American Name Society at its annual Name of the Year discussion and vote on January 8, 2026. This political demonstration name was selected for its direct communicative power, its linguistic brevity, and its extensions during the protests, in forms such as “no thrones” and “no crowns”.… Read More
Nominations Wanted for Names of the Year 2025
The American Name Society is requesting nominations for the “Names of the Year for 2025”. The names selected will be ones that best illustrate, through their creation and/or use during the past 12 months, important trends in the culture of the United States. It is not necessary, however, for a nominated name to have originated in the US. Any name can be nominated as long as it has been prominent in North American cultural discourse during the past year. Nominations are called for in the following categories:
- Personal Names: Names or nicknames of individual real people or individual animals.
- Place Names: Names or nicknames of any real geographical location, including all natural features, political subdivisions, streets, and buildings. Names of national or ethnic groups based on place names could be included here.
- Trade Names: Names of real commercial products, as well as names of both for-profit and non-profit incorporated companies and organizations, including businesses and universities.
- Artistic & Literary Names: Names of fictional persons, places, or institutions, in any written, oral, or visual medium, as well as titles of art works, books, plays, television programs, or movies. Such names are deliberately given by the creator of the work.
- E-Names: Names of persons, figures, places, products, businesses, institutions, operations, organizations, platforms, and movements that exist in the virtual world.
- Miscellaneous Names: Any name which does not fit in the above five categories, such as names created by linguistic errors, names of particular inanimate objects, names of unorganized political movements, names of languages, etc. In most cases, such items would be capitalized in everyday English orthography.
Winners will be chosen in each category, and then a final vote will determine the overall Name of the Year. Anyone may nominate a name. The discussion will be conducted by Laurel Sutton, ANS Past President and Name of the Year Coordinator.
You can nominate names via this form: https://nick662.typeform.com/to/qiS2bXas?typeform-source=www.americannamesociety.org
Advance nominations must be received no later than January 6, 2026, at midnight Pacific.
The winning names will be selected on Thursday, January 8, 2026 on Zoom from 12-2pm PST . Tickets are free and can be ordered here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/ans-name-of-the-year-2025-discussion-and-vote-tickets-1967205383257
The URL to our Zoom room will be sent to everyone who registers for this event.