Wheaton College, the alma mater of the former Speaker of the US House of Representatives, J. Dennis Hastert, recently announced that it will be removing the politician’s name from its public policy center. The announcement came in reaction to Hastert’s federal indictment in connection to his having paid over 3 million dollars to conceal his sexual misconduct during the time that he served as a highschool teacher and wrestling coach. Click here for more information, as reported by The New York Times.

Wheaton College is certainly not the first to undergo onomastic purging after news of a namesake’s criminal misconduct surfaced. Just last year, in Albuquerque, New Mexico, the district board voted to remove the name of State Senator Manny M. Aragon from the library at Lowell Elementary School after the politician was sent to federal prison for conspiracy to defraud the over 4 million dollars from the state of New Mexico.

New controversy has erupted over the domain name “dot sucks”, which encourages the creation of many protest addresses.

Just a few of the most sought after names to be conjoined with the “.sucks” domain name are Apple, Google, Microsoft, CocaCola, and McDonalds. To protect their brand, many such companies have already bought up domains featuring their brand/company and .sucks.

These domain names cost almost $3,000, compared with less than $100 for typical domain names. The company Vox Populi owns “.sucks”.

For more see on this development, see this Wall Street Journal article.

The California Assembly has passed a bill banning the use of the name “Redskins” for highschool mascots.  If the bill becomes a law, all California schools would be required to expunge what many Native American activists agree is an offensive and injurious moniker by the year 2017. In June 2014, the U.S. Patent Office officially canceled the trademark name with the argument that it is “disparaging to Native Americans”.

Edward Snowden

This article poses an interesting question about mixing up names. Can you offer a solution?

Veterinary Pet Insurance has announced that “Max” is the most popular pet name for both dog and cat owners.

Their analysis is based on ca. 450,000 insured pets.

Top 5 dog names: Max, Molly, Buddy, Bella, and Lucy

Top 5 cat names: Max, Chloe, Lucy, Tigger, and Tiger. 

Click here for useful tips on naming your favorite furry family member.

Efforts are now underway to give place names to Ceres, “the Dwarf Planet”. According to the International Astronomical Union (IAU), Ceres’ nooks and crannies will be named after agricultural deities. According to Emily Lakdawalla of the Planetary Society, a topographic map of Ceres’ surface is being divided into quadrants. Each of these “quads” is then systematically bestowed an official toponym, many of which have borrowed from Roman mythology.