The English language is evolving. In the Trumptionary posts (part 1 and part 2) the Chronicle of Higher Education discusses words we’ve coined based on Trump’s name and some of the things he has said this election season.

A British teenager founded Special Name, a website to help Chinese families find the best “English” name for their newborn child. This is one of a few such websites dedicated to helping this onomastic issue.

Canadian Council members recently decided to name the streets of an up and coming development adjacent to Canada’s Olympic Park in honor Calgary’s rich indigenous history. After consultation with Blackfoot elders in the area, several toponyms were selected. Although the idea itself was initially applauded by Canadians both inside and outside of the Blackfoot community, an unexpected debate subsequently erupted over the language to be used for the street names. While some would prefer English translations, others argue that the Blackfoot originals should be used instead. Read more about this onomastic controversy.

Registration is open for elementary, middle, or high school officials to join a growing partnership of scholastic organizations who plan to join hands in collective celebration of the “No Name-Calling Week”. Scheduled for the 16th to the 20th of January 2017, this week was originally created by GLSEN (Gay-Straight Alliances) and Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing and now consists of more than 60 different national partner organizations.

Over the past few decades, the artificial color line dividing babies into blue and pink camps has gradually eroded in US society. This development is clearly evident in the names parents have been increasingly selecting for their newborns. According to Pamela Redmond Satran, the founder of Nameberry, one of the world’s leading onomastic websites, one of the hottest trends for 2016 is “post gender” naming (i.e. not constricting the selection of a baby’s name on rigid constructions of what is masculine or feminine). The New York Times recently covered this developing trend.

Amidst all the controversies of the Rio Olympics, there was an onomastic one: It seems that the Taiwanese are more than piqued that their athletes were asked to compete under the name “Chinese Taipei.” According to a CNN interview given by Coen Blaauw, executive director of the Formosan Association for Public Affairs, the name ‘Chinese Taipei’ is “humiliating for the 23 million people of the democratic country of Taiwan”. There are also fears among supporters of Taiwanese independence that the Olympic use of the moniker would help the controversial placename stick. Although Taiwanese activist and Sunflower Movement supporter Huang Kuo-chang stressed that his compatriots “definitely want a peaceful relationship with China,” that does not mean, Kuo-Chang explained, that they should not be forced to sacrifice their own way of life or onomastic identity.

The American Name Society and the German Society for Name Research (a.k.a. Deutsche Gesellschaft für Namenforschung) have joined hands in the GfN network of scholarly societies for onomastic research. Other international societies in this network include the International Council of Onomastic Sciences (ICOS), Sweden’s Institute for Language and Folklore, France’s Société Française d’Onomastique (SFO), Spain’s Societat d’Onomàstica (Sd’O), and Italy’s Rivista Italiana di Onomastica (RIOn).