Chinese baby naming in the 21st century

Beijing fortune-teller Mao Shandong offers Chinese parents an auspicious name for their newborn but he faces competition from tech-savvy entrepreneurs who have turned the ancient tradition into a lucrative online business

For many Chinese parents, making the right choice for their child’s name has become even more imperative as they seek to help their children stand out in the world’s most populous country. These days, they are more likely to turn to online businesses than to more traditional resources like fortune tellers. According to this article at the news site Phys.org, a quick web search reveals more than a hundred such businesses in China, each promising names that will pave the way for future success. But what kinds of names do they suggest? Read on to find out.

“Create a Character Contest”: Scholastic Partners with Marlane Kennedy

Marlane Kennedy, children’s book author of such classics as Lucky Dog, Me and the Pumpkin Queen, and The Dog Days of Charlotte Hayes, recently joined forces in a novel contest with Storyworks, an educational resource for teachers, parents, administrators, and librarians.  The competition asked teachers and their students to “create a character” for the award-winning author’s upcoming publication.  Winners of the contest would receive a two-year class subscription to Storyworks and a signed class set of Ms. Kennedy’s book, Disaster Strikes: Earthquake Shock. The name of the contest-winning character will be published in the May/June 2017 issue of Storyworks.

Summer Internship at Ethnic Technologies

Ethnic Technologies is currently searching for an undergraduate or graduate student with a keen interest in onomastics to serve as a paid summer intern M-F, 40 hrs/wk for 8 weeks. The person hired for this position will be responsible for classifying first and last names by ethnicity; identifying morphological patterns within lists of names; defining rules from visible patterns; improving the logic that incorporates name intelligence into a predictive software product. Applicants must have strong communications skills in English and competency in at least one second language. Basic computer programming skills and knowledge of database software are a bonus. Information about the company can be found at their website. Interested applicants are asked to email former ANS Information Officer, Lisa Spira (lspira AT ethnictechnologies.com). THE DEADLINE FOR APPLICATIONS IS APRIL 7, 2017.

About Names: The names Teresa and Theresa get a boost from their religious ties

Dr. Cleveland Evans writes about names for the Omaha World-Herald. In his March 29th column, he looks at the history of the names Teresa and Theresa. St. Teresa of Ávila, a Spanish nun and mystic, was born 502 years ago this week – so Happy Birthday, Dr. Teresa! While still a common name, today’s most famous Teresa is Mother Teresa (1910-1997), born Anjezë Gonxhe Bojaxhiu in Albania, the founder of Calcutta’s Missionaries of Charity canonized by Pope Francis last September. And in 1974 Teresa Graves (1948-2002, pictured left) was the first African-American female star of an hourlong television drama (“Get Christy Love”).

 

Netflix-inspired baby names rising in popularity

A new report by UK pregnancy & parenting website Bounty has uncovered that baby names inspired by Netflix characters are on the up. The report, which reviewed the 340,000 names Bounty’s members gave to their babies in recent months, found that as well as more common-place character names increasing in popularity, there’s been a sharp rise in unique names featured on shows this year. So which are the most popular – Piper, Walter, Jessica? Did your favorites make the list?

Call for Papers: Ars Grammatica 2017, Mannheim, Germany, June 8-9 2017

From the 8th to the 9th of June 2017 in Mannheim, Germany, a special conference devoted to grammatical terminology in German will be held at the Institut für Deutsche Sprache in Mannheim.  Entitled “Ars Grammatica 2017”, this scientific gathering welcomes researchers from the branches of computational linguistics, theoretical linguistics, syntax, and lexicography.  The deadline for abstract submissions is the 15th of April 2017. More on this German language event can be found at the conference website.

Under the title “Grammatical terminology – content and methods”, paper should deal with the characteristics and properties of grammatical technical terms in the field, and the tension between content and methodological application:

  • From a substantive point of view, it is important to conceive and use as exact definitions as possible of specialized terminology in order to be able to express linguistic phenomena and explanations precisely. This suggests, in particular, such scientific disciplines as challenges in which varying theories of theory, cognitive interests or subjective authors’ decisions lead to a non-uniform terminological inventory, which is even contradictory in individual cases.
  • From a methodological point of view, it is necessary to develop sufficiently powerful and sustainable structures for the coding of domain-specific terminological systems. The spectrum ranges from methodically oriented specialized vocabularies, thesauri to knowledge networks and ontologies with appropriately modeled concepts and attributes.

Creatures named after Sir David Attenborough

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Sir David Attenborough has brought wildlife to people’s televisions for more than 60 years. He’s inspired many people to take an interest in animals. This BBC Newsround article has beautiful photos of seven creatures named after Attenborough, plus one more item in the non-animal category. Do you know what it is?