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).

The Israeli app The Namestork generates name suggestions based on a user’s input of names they like. The app was designed to ease all the list making. According the app’s developers, “a lot of parents already have a general idea about the ‘feeling’ of the name they’re looking for, but they still can’t find the one. The idea is to use a technological solution that will translate this general feeling into a list of names with the highest match potential.”

Jews may be only 2 percent of the US population, but Jewish-inspired baby names are generally popular in the United States. Take a look at this analysis.

The votes have been counted. The hard decisions have been made. The three adorable wolf pups born in the Chicago Zoological Society’s Brookfield Zoo finally have names to call their own. After receiving more than 20,000 suggestions, zoo authorities have announced that the furry trio have been bestowed the names Rio, Azul, and Ela.

Pokémon Go has even inspired baby names.

Names scholars and enthusiasts with a special interest in all things Estonian will be excited to learn that a new publication on Estonia toponyms has been recently released. Eesti kohanimeraamat, aka The Book of Estonian Place Names, offers readers over 6000 entries over 1,000 pages on the pronunciation, grammar, and history of Estonian toponyms, written, spoken, and signed. Read more about this resource in Estonian.

British actor Maurice Micklewhite, known by his stage name Michael Caine, has now has legally changed his name to Michael Caine. It was too difficult to deal with the increased airport security checks.

China has censored all online references to the beetle species named after the country’s president, Xi Jinping. This comes as a disappointment to the scientist who discovered and named it.

A new species of spider was recently discovered by Queensland Museum scientist Dr Barbara Baehr. She named the spider the maratus lincunxin in honor of Queensland Ballet artistic director Li Cunxin.

Wellington trains haven’t been accurately pronouncing Māori place names. But now the Greater Wellington Regional Council is updating the recording for the automated announcements to reflect the correct pronunciation of in te reo Māori [the Māori language].