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.

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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:

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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.

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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”

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