About Names: Dr. Cleveland Evans on the name “Chester”

Dr. Cleveland Evans writes about names for the Omaha World-Herald. In his October 5th column, he discusses the name “Chester”.

 

Chester A. Arthur became president in 1881 after James Garfield’s assassination.
Chester A. Arthur (1829-1886) was born 196 years ago today. Elected vice president in 1884, he became president on Sept. 19, 1881 after James Garfield’s assassination.

Chester Arthur was a protégé of Roscoe Conkling’s corrupt New York Republican machine. He surprised many by supporting civil service reform and trying to maintain the rights of freed slaves and Chinese immigrants. Often thought one of the worst presidents a century ago, today he’s risen to about midpoint on historians’ rankings.
Chester is an English place name from Old English “caestrum,” meaning “Roman city,” itself from Latin “castrum” (“fort”). In medieval times it became a surname, showing one’s ancestor came from a place called Chester.

When the custom of turning surnames into first names began in the 18th century, boys named Chester appeared in Britain and America. Britain’s 1851 Census found 197 men with the first name Chester. The 1850 U.S. Census, when the two countries had about equal populations, included 5,478.

Why Chester was more than 27 times more common in the United States is a bit mysterious. Its American popularity began in New England. 42 of the 44 American-born Chesters over age 70 in 1850 were born in New England or upstate New York. The two others were Black men born in Maryland, where slave owners sometimes turned place names into first names.

Chester Waterman (1760-1856), the oldest 1850 example, was probably named after his father’s sister’s husband, Jonathan Chester, descended from well-off ship’s captains in New London. Younger examples may have honored John Chester (1749-1809), a Revolutionary war colonel who became speaker of the Connecticut House of Representatives and a judge on Connecticut’s Supreme Court.

 

Want to learn more? Read on to learn more about the name “Chester”!

NAME NEWS- Bobby: A Lost Name?

By General Artists Corporation (management)/photographer: “Bruno of Hollywood” – eBay itemphoto frontphoto back, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=18229272

A recent NPR article explores the rise, and fall, of the name Bobby in America. From an explosion in popularity in the post-war period, particularly among music stars, the name suddenly dropped out of popularity by the 1970s.

You can read the full article here.

Call for Papers: ANS 2026

 

Call for Papers

The 2026 Annual Meeting of the

American Name Society

ONLINE (via Zoom)

21 February 2026

 

The American Name Society is now inviting proposals for papers for its next annual conference. The one-day event will be held virtually via Zoom, allowing for the attendance of onomastics scholars from around the world. The 2026 ANS conference will not be held in conjunction with the Linguistics Society of America conference.

Abstracts in any area of onomastic research are welcome: personal names, place names, business and institutional names, names theory, names in literature, among others.

Proposals require these elements:

  • Title of proposed paper
  • 250-word abstract
  • Shorter 100-word abstract suitable for inclusion in conference program
  • 50-word biography suitable for inclusion in conference program

To submit a proposal, complete the 2026 Author Information Form found here:

            http://bit.ly/4lvsHCk

Email completed forms to the ANS at: abstracts@americannamesociety.org

For organizational purposes, place “ANS2026” in the subject of your email.

The DEADLINE for receipt of abstracts is September 30, 2025.

All proposals will be subjected to blind review. Notification of proposal acceptances will be sent by October 31, 2025. Authors whose papers have been accepted must be current members of ANS and must register for the annual meeting. Please contact us at info@americannamesociety.org if you have any questions or concerns.

We look forward to receiving your submission!

About Names: Dr. Cleveland Evans on the name “Frank”

Dr. Cleveland Evans writes about names for the Omaha World-Herald. In his July 27th column, he discusses the name “Frank”.

Between the 11th and 14th centuries, Frank was common as a boys’ name in England. Like many medieval names, it then largely disappeared.

Frank came back as a nickname for Francis, English form of Italian Francesco, “a Frenchman,” when the fame of St. Francis of Assisi (1181-1226) spread his name across Europe.

It’s hard to tell exactly when Frank started being used separately from Francis again, but this started by 1800. Jane Austen’s 1815 novel “Emma,” featuring handsome genial wealthy Frank Churchill, helped spread the name.

The 1850 United States census, first listing all free residents by name, found 17,228 male Franks, along with 71,733 Francises and 37,257 Franklins. English surname Franklin (“freeman”) became an American given name in honor of founding father Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790).

A decade later the 1860 census found 88,681 Francises, 57,854 Franklins and 106,459 Franks. Some Franks were officially Francis or Franklin, though it’s difficult to know how many. Still, the over six-fold increase in Franks shows the name was skyrocketing in use.

In 1880, when Social Security’s yearly baby name lists begin, 2.738% of boys were named Frank, ranking it sixth. That was Frank’s peak. The percentage of boys named Frank has declined almost every year since — but it’s done so extremely slowly. Frank was among the top ten names until 1923, the top fifty until 1971 and the top hundred until 1989.

Want to learn more? Read on to learn more about the name “Frank”!

Call for Papers: Forensic Onomastics Special Issue of NAMES: A Journal of Onomastics

The American Name Society (ANS) is now issuing its first call for abstracts for an upcoming Special issue of the Society’s journal, NAMES: A Journal of Onomastics.

One of the most fascinating areas of interdisciplinary research involving onomastics,  criminology, and the law is forensic onomastics. The current call for paper proposals for original pieces of research for an upcoming Special Issue of NAMES devoted to this branch of onomastic investigation.   Possible topics of interest include but are not limited to the following:

  1. The names and naming of crimes, criminals, and/or victims.
  2. Crimes involving the illegal use of names (e.g. identity theft/fraud; trademark infringement, verbal threats involving malicious name-calling; the use of modern investigative technology to uncover the names of unknown crime victims and crime perpetrators in cold cases)
  3. The names of laws and policies at any level of governance.
  4. Laws and policies governing the use or alteration of names
  5. Strategies for the translation of names in forensic contexts
  6. The clandestine names used by criminals and/or illegal organizations, both online and offline
  7. The ways in which the media uses names to discuss crimes, crime victims, and criminal offenders
  8. Official strategies or policies used by law enforcement to analyze, process, or store public onomastic data
  9. Legal cases fought over names (e.g., the right to use a product name; lawsuits over potentially pejorative names)
  10. Naming policies and practices of governmental organizations devoted to names and naming (e.g. regulations for naming national monuments; policies for naming meteorological events (e.g., fires, storms, earthquakes, tidal waves etc.); guidelines for naming geographical features (e.g., bodies of water, mountains, hills, streams, land masses) or structures (canals, levies, dams, etc.); (inter)national policies for naming zoological and/or botanical species

Proposals for research examining any name type, during any period of time, are welcome.  Although all proposals must be written in English, the papers proposed may involve any language(s), spoken, written, or signed.  Both diachronic and synchronic approaches are invited. Investigations may also employ qualitative, quantitative, or mixed methods. Data relevant to either criminal or civil law may be examined.   However, the analysis proposed must be clearly on focused on the onomastic data.  Proposals will be judged upon their thematic fit as well as their potential to make a substantive fact-based contribution to both forensic linguistics and onomastics.  All Interested authors are asked to submit their formal proposals using the following guidelines.

Proposal Submission Process

  • Abstract proposals (max. 800 words, not including references) should be sent as an email attachment (PDF format) to Professor I. M. Nick (nameseditor@gmail.com);
  • Proposals must include a preliminary reference list that follows the formatting regulations of the NAMES Style Sheet;
  • Proposals must include “FORENSICS” in the subject line of the email;
  • All proposals must include an abstract, a tentative title, the full name(s) of the author(s), the author(s) affiliation(s), and email address(s) in the accompanying email and NOT within the body of the abstract;
  • DEADLINE: Proposals must be received by August 31, 2025.
  • All proposals will be submitted to a double-blind review process. Authors will be notified about acceptance on or by September 15, 2025
  • Final chapters (max 7,000 words, excluding abstracts, graphics, and references) will be due November 15, 2025

For further information about this call, please feel free to contact Professor I. M. Nick (nameseditor@gmail.com).

Name News: Trump on Military Base Names

Shared under Upsplash licence

Trump plans to reinstate the names of Confederate generals for army bases, according to a recent NYT article,

‘In a statement, the Army said it would “take immediate action” to restore the old names of the bases originally honoring Confederates, but the base names would instead honor other American soldiers with similar names and initials.’

Name News: Changing Names after Marriage?

A recent Washington Post article explores the declining adoption of the spouse’s surname after marriage: ‘Americans in their 20s are about half as likely to adopt their spouses’ names as were their octogenarian grandparents’.

There is some variation by political leaning: ‘registered Democrats are more than twice as likely as registered Republicans to be in couples that kept their names after marriage’

About Names: Dr. Cleveland Evans on the name “Luke”

Dr. Cleveland Evans writes about names for the Omaha World-Herald. In his May 4th column, he discusses the name “Luke”.

Since 1979 fans of “Star Wars” have celebrated May 4, punning “May the fourth” with catch phrase “May the Force be with you.” Though it’s now usually called “Star Wars Day,” earlier it was often “Luke Skywalker Day” after the young hero (played by Mark Hamill) who battles the evil empire in a galaxy far, far away.

Luke’s the English form of Greek Loukas, meaning “man from Lucania.” Lucania was a region in-between the “toe” and “boot” of the Italian peninsula. “Lucania” derives from an ancient Oscan word for “light” or “sunrise”, being east of the original Oscan homeland.

Saint Luke, a physician who traveled with the Apostle Paul, wrote both the New Testament’s Gospel of Luke and Acts of the Apostles. 28 churches in medieval England were dedicated to him, and in 1379 the name Luke ranked 34th for Englishmen.

The 1850 United States census found 4,552 Lukes, while the 1851 British census found 7,639, when the two countries had similar total populations. Some American Protestants may have avoided Luke because it was well-used by Catholic immigrants. 16.6% of 1850’s Lukes were Irish-born.

When Social Security’s yearly baby name lists start in 1880, Luke ranked 252nd. Its use slowly fell, bottoming out at 597th in 1942.

Want to learn more? Read on to learn more about the name “Luke”!