In an act of zoological onomastic history-making, Akron, Ohio’s famous snow leopard triplets were given the chance to pick their own names. After collecting almost 7,00 suggestions from the general public, zoo officials announced that the triplets had chosen the names “Altai”, “Asha”, and “Layan” which mean golden, hope, and gentle, respectively.

Presidential races even impact baby names. Babycenter’s recent study found that Clinton is currently influencing baby names more than Trump is.

In the pharmaceutical business, companies hoping to jump on the profit bandwagon of their competitors often release products that have no significant clinical difference to the market leaders. Makers of these “biosimilars” have long argued that their products should be allowed to carry the same generic or non-proprietary names as the name brand leaders. However, many of the major drug franchisors have fought tooth and nail against this practice, claiming territorial rights. Caught in the middle of the billion-dollar onomastic fight has been the US government. Recently, however, the FDA proposed a solution. The generic drug system would be augmented with a random set of four letters. Learn more about the proposed naming rules.

In a recent article published by “The New Indian Express”, it was announced that, for the very first time in Indian history, the electoral roll for the Kerala Assembly elections would have a third gender option.

2016 marks the first year anniversary of Ohio University’s historic decision to recognize the right of OU students to have their preferred name and pronoun used on official university listings such as class rosters, advising lists, and student ID cards.

 

Salt Lake City now has a street named after Harvey Milk, one of the first openly gay politicians to run for and win public office in US history. In 1977, the social activist was elected to San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors. A year later, he was assassinated along with San Francisco Mayor, George Moscone. Although a few Utah residents fought against the proposed toponym, according to Stan Penfold, Utah’s first openly gay councilman, the majority of the community embraced the move to add “Harvey Milk Boulevard” to the state’s rich toponymic history.

Earlier this month, New York temporarily renamed 33rd Street to honor the late boxing legend Muhammad Ali. The new street sign was added to below “33rd Street” near Madison Square Garden.

In a landmark decision this spring, Brazilian authorities ruled that transgender and transsexual civil servants are allowed to use their newly chosen names at work. Although conservatives have complained about the decision, for now, Brazilian LGBT human rights activists are savoring their victory. This decision was passed just weeks before another historic onomastic ruling in which Bolivian officials also acknowledged the rights of adult transsexuals to legally change their names.

The Google Chrome extension Coincidence Detector, which has since been removed from the Chrome store, identified Jews and other “anti-white” individuals. The Coincidence Detector detected based on a regularly updated database of names. The browser extension had a White Supremacist user base and following.

If the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) has its way, the world’s periodic table will have four new names added. Planned for the lower right-hand corner, the names of the new chemical elements are moscovium (Mc); nihonium (Nh), tennessine (Ts), and oganesson (Og). According to the IUPAC rules, elements must be named after a mythological concept, a mineral, a scientist, one of their physical or chemical properties, or a place. The name for element 113, for example, was derived from the Japanese word “Nihon” or “Japan”. After much debate, this name won out over its leading competitor, “Japonium”. By the same token, Elements 115 and 117, owe their names to the toponyms “Moscow” and “Tennessee”. Unless there are major objections, these chemical monikers will become officially enshrined in the table this coming Autumn.