The final program for the Annual Meeting of La Société canadienne d’onomastique / The Canadian Society for the Study of Names is now available here. The meeting will be held virtually in conjunction with Canada’s Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences 2021, which takes place this weekend 29-30 May 2021. If you are interested in attending the meeting, you can find more detail about registration here.
In a story about how Cascatelli got its name, ANS President Laurel Sutton describes the process of naming a new shape of pasta.
According to creator and Sporkful Podcast host Dan Pashman, Cascatelli was designed to maximize what he believes are all optimum features of pastas: sauceability (“how readily sauce adhere to the shape”), forkability (“how easy it is to get the shape on your fork and keep it there”), and toothskinability (“how satisfying it is to sink your teeth into it”).
In Sutton’s story, several fascinating alternatives were introduced (and one, Millepiedi, promptly vetoed due to similarity to the insect of the same name). Ultimately, Cascatelle was the winning entry with one small change. Click here to read more about that change in “Pastafazool! Helping to name Cascatelli” at Catchword.
Click here to listen to the podcast episode featuring ANS President Laurel Sutton.
Trevor Noah speaking at BookExpo 2018 (photo by Terry Ballard, CC BY 2.0, Wikimedia Commons)
Dr. Cleveland Evans writes about names for the Omaha World-Herald. In his March 14th column, he looks at the history of the name Trevor.
Trevor may not sing tonight, but he’ll surely joke about singers. Tonight, South-African born comedian Trevor Noah, star of Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show,” hosts the 63rd Grammy Awards.
Trevor is a Welsh surname, indicating one’s ancestors lived in one of several medieval hamlets in Wales whose name meant “large homestead.”
Though Trevor is an uncommon last name it’s well-known in Britain because of Edward Trevor (1580-1642), a Welsh soldier sent to Ireland who married Rose Ussher, daughter of the Anglican Archbishop of Armagh, in 1612. He acquired a large estate in County Down and was knighted in 1617.
Sir Edward’s grandson Sir John Trevor (1637-1717) was Speaker of the House of Commons from 1689 to 1695. Though Sir John lost his speakership because of taking bribes, by then his daughter Anne had married Michael Hill, Governor of County Down. Their elder son Trevor Hill (1693-1742), perhaps the earliest person with Trevor as a first name, became Viscount Hillsborough. Younger son Arthur (1694-1771), created Viscount Dungannon in 1766, is a five-greats-grandfather of Queen Elizabeth II.
Trevor’s aristocratic associations led to its use as a surname for many characters in British novels and plays. After 1925 it became fashionable as a first name in England. This was reinforced when Trevor Howard (1913-1988) became one of Britain’s biggest movie stars in “Brief Encounter” (1945). Trevor peaked in 1955 at around 27th on England’s baby name chart.
The FDA will study the link between users’ perceptions of drug efficacy and the name of the drug itself. Zachary Brennan writes, “The study will compare five target names that may just suggest a medical condition or vary in terms of how the name portrays a drug’s efficacy, with one name that explicitly suggests strong efficacy (CuresFlux) and one that is more neutral (Zerpexin). Participants will answer questions about the names, before and after they have been told what each drug’s indication is.”
Read more about this study and the role of names in drug perception on Endpoints News.
Take a moment to check your calendar. Tea time with Ethel this Tuesday? Meeting Merle for a matinee on Monday? Neither of the above? It’s not surprising, as both “Ethel” and “Merle” have fallen out of use in recent decades. Using a database from the Social Security Administration, Rose Heichelbech compiled a list of “10 Names you don’t hear anymore”. There are no rigid criteria behind her list, but the ten names featured in her article certainly prove its title accurate.
Ann Xu and Vivien Chan describe the importance of registering Chinese marks, how to devise them, and how to maintain them. Issues of translation and transliteration are discussed, as well as foreign name and brand recognition in emerging and new marketplaces.
A few mere days before April 1, 2021, Volkswagen of America announced that it would change its name to “Voltswagen of America” in order to promote its electric vehicles. The move brought about confusion and criticism online by many who took the announcement seriously, but it was quickly followed by a retraction and explanation. In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, a spokesperson admitted that the name change was a marketing stunt and April fools joke intended to get the public talking about the new electric vehicle: the Volkswagen ID. 4.
In June, Washington and Lee University will announce whether or not it will change its name.
Named for George Washington and Robert E. Lee, Washington and Lee University was once Washington College. Following General Lee’s surrender at Appomattox, he was appointed President of Washington College where he served for five years. In 1870, the University was renamed to honor him. In recent years, students have been petitioning the University to change its name once again.
Actress Cara Delevingne speaking at Comic Con in 2015 (photo by Gage Skidmore, CC BY-SA 2.0, Wikimedia Commons)
Dr. Cleveland Evans writes about names for the Omaha World-Herald. In his March 28th column, he looks at the history of the name Kara / Cara.
Kara is super again on Tuesday.
“Supergirl,” the CW series starring Melissa Benoist as Kara Danvers, Superman’s younger cousin developing her Kryptonian superpowers, starts its sixth season March 30.
Kara is a respelling of Cara. In Latin “cara” is the feminine form of “carus,” meaning “dear, beloved.” The Latin word became a name around 1827 in Sweden, though Swedish onomastician Roland Otterbjörk notes it was also often a pet form of Karolina.
It’s hard to know when Cara’s use began in America. It’s difficult to distinguish from “Cora” in handwritten records. The first sure example, Cara Whiton-Stone (1831-1913), was a Boston socialite and published poet. Though she’s Cara or Carra in almost all available records, a 1909 U.S. Senate bill increasing her military widow’s pension calls her “Caroline Stone.”
Pittsburgh journalist Cara Reese (1856-1914), who famously covered the 1889 Johnstown Flood, was also born “Caroline.”
Many baby name books claim Cara is Italian or Irish. In Italian “cara” means “beloved.” In Irish Gaelic, “cara” means “friend.” With that meaning, Cara is fashionable in modern Ireland, peaking at 29th in 2018.
Cara has never been used as a name in Italy, though, and there’s scant evidence the Irish word became a name before the 20th century.
Following the sixth meeting of the Emergency Committee regarding the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, the World Health Organization announced on January 14, 2021 that it is developing a standardized nomenclature for COVID-19 variants “that does not reference a geographical location.” In a letter to Science magazine, Salim S. Abdool Karim, Tulio de Oliveira, and Glaudina Loots suggested an alternative naming convention is necessary, as the practice of applying geographical qualifiers is generally inaccurate and often harmful to the ethnic people from the region.
The authors write, “The connotation that the variants were created and spread by their respective first locations has already generated political backlash through travel bans and negative perceptions of these countries and their people. The risk of being associated with a new variant also disincentivizes country-level genomic surveillance and transparent reporting of their results.” The new naming guidelines are expected to be released soon, but the authors of the letter believe scientific and media outlets should not delay in avoiding reference to the country or region of first description when identifying variants.
.jpg){kind=link}
