ANS Vice President Laurel Sutton on the Baby Names Podcast, with Jennifer Moss

On the Baby Names Podcast, ANS Member Jennifer Moss interviews Laurel Sutton, ANS Vice President and founder of Catchword, one of the top naming companies in the world. Laurel discusses how the process of naming people is not that different than naming  companies and products.

Jennifer and Mallory also gab about the current celebrity baby news and take listener questions on names and naming!

Names mentioned in this episode: PraxidikeBenedict Cumberbatch, Hannah Hart, NovaHomerIgorMallory

About Names: Levi’s genes can be traced to the Bible and denim

Levi Strauss button

Dr. Cleveland Evans writes about names for the Omaha World-Herald. In his February 26th column, he looks at the history of the name Levi.

The first Levi was Jacob and Leah’s third son in the Bible’s book of Genesis. At his birth, Leah says “Now my husband will be joined to me, because I have borne him three sons.” Hebrew “lawah” means “joined.” Levi’s descendants became priests and attendants at Jerusalem’s temple.

Before the Reformation, Levi was only used by Jews. Then some Protestant parents took it up. Unlike other Old Testament names such as Abraham and Joshua, Levi didn’t become generally popular in England, appealing only to more radical Puritans. Britain’s 1851 census found 4,727 Levis. In the 1850 United States census (when the nations had about the same population), there were 36,624, most descendants of New England Puritans living in the North.

Modern Levis now gaining fame include Levi Leipheimer (born 1973), the U.S. national champion road racing cyclist in 1999 and 2007, and Levi LaVallee (1982), winner of seven gold medals in snowmobile racing at the Winter X games between 2004 and 2014.

Want to know more? Read on to find out more about Levis in history!

Names of All Montgomery Schools Will Be Reviewed

At the meeting on the 25th February 2019, the school board unanimously approved a resolution to create a committee to suggest new names for Lee Middle, in Silver Spring, and asked for a review of existing school names to “ensure that all names are appropriate candidates for school facilities.” County Council President Nancy Navarro is pushing for a change based on Lee’s history that included implementing racist housing policies, forcing minorities from buying or renting homes in some subdivisions.

There are 206 public schools in Montgomery County serving about 163,000 students. Staff members have begun researching school facility names and the history of the people. Although a timeline for the review wasn’t given, it is an “in-depth process that will take a little time.”

Investors dismiss analysis from those who have less favourable surnames

Investors and financial advisors may be influenced by an unusual element of a stock market forecast – the analyst’s name. That’s the finding of a new study by researchers at the Cass Business School in London which discovered that a more favourable surname elicited stronger market reactions to earnings forecasts.

The researchers measured surname favourability using the US historical immigration records to identify countries of origin associated with a particular surname and the Gallup survey data on Americans’ favourability toward foreign countries. The research paper ‘An Analyst by Any Other Surname: Surname Favorability and Market Reaction to Analyst Forecasts’ is conditionally accepted for publication in the Journal of Accounting and Economics.

The $33-million deal for the naming rights

Ten years after custody of the struggling Cobo Center transferred to a regional authority, the 59-year-old Detroit landmark has a new identity of fiscal responsibility — and a new name.

The Detroit Regional Convention Facility Authority said on 20th February it had struck a $33-million deal with Chemical Bank to rename one of the largest convention centers in the United States. Chemical Bank CEO Tom Shafer said the company will pay $1.5 million annually over 22 years for the naming rights. Should the bank’s merger with TCF Financial Corp., the center’s name would be the TCF Center. A new name will be finalized by the end of 2019.

10 Questions about Icelandic Names

Icelandic names have left many a foreigner puzzled and tongue tied. On the volcanic island in the North Atlantic lives a nation of a little over 350.000 people with it’s own language and a unique alphabet. Jón Jónson and Björk Guðmundsdóttir might seem like a random jumble of letters but in Iceland they are as mundane as boiling hot water shooting out of the earth.

Naming traditions in Iceland are fascinating and might seem complicated to the outside eye. Icelandic people often get questions from foreigners about their names. The following are answers given by Laufey Haraldsdóttir to some of the most common questions about Icelandic names.

University of Minnesota task force urges renaming Coffman Memorial Union

 

A University of Minnesota task force has recommended changing the names of four Twin Cities campus buildings because of what it deemed their namesakes’ racist or anti-Semitic practices. The group’s report, released in February 20, comes after a 16-month process that some regents and students have criticized as overly plodding, with the task force following up last year on the work of an earlier committee. The task force backed renaming Coffman Memorial Union — for former U President Lotus Coffman, who presided over a major university expansion but also excluded black students from campus housing and programs — as well as three other buildings. President Eric Kaler will review that report and present his own proposal to the U’s governing board in March.

The Republic of Macedonia officially renamed “Republic of North Macedonia”

The official change of the country’s name was first implemented on Macedonian government website, which will be followed by the replacement of signage at the various border crossings due to take place today.

The flag of  NATO was raised in front of the Macedonian government building in an official ceremony held on the 12th February 2019 to mark Macedonia’s signing of the accession protocol to join the military alliance. The photographers documented the removal of old signs and the set-up of new ones. There is a five-year period laid out in the Prespes Agreement for all official documents and references to transition to the new name, so one should not expect changes overnight in all aspects of the country’s life.

Renaming Philippines to ‘Maharlika’ needs congressional action

Changing the Philippines’ name would require a new law and the public’s approval in a referendum, Malacañang said on Tuesday, February 12, 2019, after President Duterte had revived a proposal to rename the Philippines to “Maharlika.”

Proposals to change the name of the Philippines have been around since the 1970s. “Maharlika” is the Filipinos’ “ancient heritage,” long before the arrival of Western colonizers. “Maha” is Sanskrit for “noble” or “great” while “likha” means “create,” thus, Maharlika means “nobly created,” according to the article. But some scholars are opposed to the name change, saying it would disregard Filipinos’ historical roots and national identity.

Lycian and Pisidian Place Names Databank

Toponyms of Pisidia and Lycia, or TPL is a searchable online database containing the metadata of Pisidian and Lycian place names attested in the Greco-Roman period (8th century BC, 3rd century BC). Pisidia and Lycia represent a region of ancient Asia Minor corresponding roughly to the modern-day province of Antalya in Turkey.

 

This project aims to give access to the references of Pisidian place names in literary sources and to provide a georeferenced map of places of Pisidia and ancient Lycia. This project results from Lauriane Locatelli‘s thesis “The toponymy and ethnonymy of ancient Pisidia” and Simone Podestà‘s thesis “Storia e storiografia della Licia”.