About Names: Rohingya is a name worth remembering

An exhausted Rohingya woman arrives with her children at Kutupalong refugee camp in Bangladesh after fleeing Myanmar in September 2017. THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Dr. Cleveland Evans writes about names for the Omaha World-Herald. In his January 16th column, he looks at the ANS 2017 Name of the Year.

At its meeting in Salt Lake City earlier this month, the American Name Society voted Rohingya as the 2017 Name of the Year.

More than 650,000 members of the Islamic group Rohingya fled Myanmar in 2017, creating a massive refugee problem in Bangladesh. The Myanmar army has targeted the Rohingya for persecution and massacres.

The American Name Society vote comes in protest of attempts to suppress the Rohingya name and deny them status as people deserving equal treatment and protection from persecution. Each year, the ANS chooses Names of the Year for places, fictional names, personal names and miscellaneous and/or trade names before choosing an overall Name of the Year.

Want to know more? Read on to find out more about the Names of the Year!

Rover.com Unveils the Most Popular Dog Names of 2017

The top baby names of and pop culture rank among the most popular sources for dog names, according to Rover.com’s fifth annual report of the year’s most popular dog names.

Rover’s data revealed that now more than ever, Americans turn to popular culture for dog name inspiration. In 2017, 8 percent of all dog names were clearly pop culture-influenced. From “Stranger Things” to “Star Wars,” pet owners are naming their dogs after their favorite icons. Also, for the third year in a row, the top baby names of the year are among the most popular dog names. The humanization of dogs has been trending upward every year, with human-inspired names making up a whopping 44 percent of all dog names in 2017—up 57 percent from 2016.

Click through to this article at Pet Products News to find out the most popular dog names!

“Whisper” Why not “Roar?”

One of the top brands of sanitary napkins in India is “Whisper”, a name that comes from the shame and secrecy associated with buying such a product. Owned by Procter & Gamble, the sanitary napkin is called “Always” in the US, UK, Canada, France, Germany and Africa. In India and other Asian countries, however, the brand is called “Whisper”.

Now, a petition on Change.org started by Shreya Gupta of Bengaluru is asking Whisper to change its name. In a video that goes with the petition, two young women talk about the power of a name and how ‘Whisper’ contributes to creating a negative idea about menstruation. The women say that despite all of Whisper’s efforts to break the taboo around menstruation through their progressive advertising, the brand name sends out a subliminal message – that you have to be secretive about your period and whisper about it.

Read this article at The News Minute to find out more about the petition and to watch the video!

It’s a Living: Last Names That Started as Jobs

Do you know where the surnames Wright, Fletcher, Cooper, and Smith come from? They all started as the names of occupations! Many surnames come from a person’s job, although you won’t find many coopers (someone who makes or repairs wooden casks or tubs) around these days. Check out this article at Merriam-Webster that explains the origins of these names and more – including, of course, Webster!

The stories behind Aboriginal star names

Star map painting by Senior Wardaman Elder Bill Yidumduma Harney, featuring the Milky Way, the Moon, and ancestor spirits.

The International Astronomical Union (IAU) has recognized 86 new star names from Chinese, Coptic, Hindu, Mayan, Polynesian, South African and Aboriginal Australian cultures. This represents a significant step forward by the IAU in recognizing the importance of traditional language and Indigenous starlore. Among the 86 new star names are four stars with Australian Aboriginal names—Larawag, Wurren, Ginan and Unurgunite. Aboriginal Australian cultures stretch back at least 65,000 years, representing the most ancient star names on the list.

The names include three from the Wardaman people of the Northern Territory and one from the Boorong people of western Victoria. The Wardaman star names are Larawag, Wurren and Ginan in the Western constellations Scorpius, Phoenix and Crux (the Southern Cross). The Boorong star name is Unurgunite in Canis Majoris (the Great Dog).

Want to learn more? Click through to this informative article at The Conversation.

About Names: The name ‘Scott’ could be poised for a comeback

Sir Walter Scott

Dr. Cleveland Evans writes about names for the Omaha World-Herald. In his January 4th column, he looks at the history of the name Scott.

Scott is an English surname telling of one’s Scottish ancestry. The Scots were Gaelic speakers from Ireland who founded the kingdom of Dál Riata in western Scotland in the sixth century. In the ninth century, Dál Riata merged with the Pictish kingdom of eastern Scotland to form the modern nation. Linguists aren’t sure what “Scot” originally meant. The best guess is Pictish for “carved,” from the ancient Gaelic habit of tattooing with sharp knives.

Today, Scott is the 10th most common surname in Scotland and 42nd most common in England. In the 2010 United States census, there were 439,530 Scotts, making it the 39th most common family name. When the custom of turning surnames into boys’ first names took off in the late 18th century, men with Scott as a first name appeared. Many had mothers whose maiden name was Scott. Others were named after Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832), famous author of novels such as “Rob Roy” and “Ivanhoe.”

Want to know more? Read on to find out more about Scotts in history!

UK Companies House rejects 50 potentially offensive names

Almost 50 company names were rejected in the UK in 2017 because they were deemed potentially offensive by Companies House, the United Kingdom’s registrar of companies and is an executive agency and trading fund of Her Majesty’s Government. The list of proposed company names rejected included Blue Arsed Fly Designs Ltd, Fanny’s Kebabs Ltd, Titanic Holdings Limited, and Wags to Bitches Limited. Some of the names may have been added later if justification was accepted. A Companies House spokesperson said it was important the register was not abused by recording offensive names.

There are more than 100 sensitive words and expressions that require the prior approval of the secretary of state to use in a company or business name. These words include benevolent, Britain/British, commission, inspectorate, licensing, standards and Windsor.

Want to know more? Click through to this article at BBC News!

In Memoriam: Randolph Quirk, linguist and UCL scholar

The ANS is saddened to report the passing of one of the greatest researchers of English linguistics, Professor Randolph Quirk, at the age of 97 on 20 December 2017. The founder of the Survey of English Usage, Professor Quirk’s publications include such legendary works as the Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language which he co-authored with Sidney Greenbaum, Geoffrey Leech, and Jan Svartik. Since its initial publication in 1985, this work has been one of the international standards of linguistics references. In honour of his stellar scholarship, Professor Quirk became a Commander of the Order of the British Empire and was knighted in 1985. A detailed biography of this luminary can be found at the University College London website.

Call for Papers: 28th international conference on British and American Studies (B.A.S.), Timisoara, Romania, May 17-19 2018

From the 17^th to the 19^th of May 2018, the city of Timisoara, Romania will be the host of an international conference on British and American Studies. Among the topics of discussion at this scientific gathering are translation studies, British and Commonwealth Literature, Cultural Studies, and American Studies. Researchers who are interested in presenting their scholarship are encouraged to submit a 60-word abstract by the 15^th of February 2018. More information on the submission process and the conference can be found via the conference website. The Call for Papers can be found here.

Cleve Evans on 2017’s Top Baby Names in the Providence Journal

Names parents choose for babies meld tradition, fashion, pop culture, ethnicity into a unique identity. The Health Department of the state of Rhode Island has provided the 10 most popular names for boys and for girls.

While simple — Emma, Olivia, Sophia, Charlotte, Isabella, Ava, Amelia, Mia, Aria and Abigail for girls; Liam, Lucas, Noah, Julian, Mason, Benjamin, Matthew, Michael, Logan and Joseph for boys — the names evidence the weighty decisions parents must make, balancing fashion with tradition, ethnic identity with popular culture, names that sound unique with ones that just sound weird.

“One of the commonest things parents are always telling me is they’re looking for a name that’s different, but not too different,” Cleveland Kent Evans, a psychology professor at Nebraska’s Bellevue University and a leading expert in how babies are named, told The Providence Journal in a previously published interview. “Culturally, one of the biggest factors now is not to have a common name. Somehow they think it’s child abuse if a kid gets into a kindergarten class and there’s another child with the same name.”

Want to know more? Read on!