A public seminar on names is being held once again at the University of Helsinki on Friday, October 2, 2015. This traditional event is open to everyone who is interested in onomastics. The seminar program contains names-related presentations (in Finnish) from authors, graduate students, and researchers from the University of Helsinki, University of Tampere, and the Institute for the Languages of Finland.
Click here for more information.
Have you ever thought about getting more actively involved in the ANS? Well, here is your opportunity! The ANS is presently looking for people interested in becoming an ANS officer. At present there are four different offices open. See the ANS Officer Information document for detailed descriptions about each of these positions and the official application form.… Read More
In the Canadian Language Museum‘s interview with Karen Pennesi, the Western University Professor and Vice President of the Canadian Society for the Study of Names shares her thoughts about the social uses of names.
Click here to read the interview.
… Read MoreThis web app graphs the popularity of individual names. Check out your name!… Read More
BoingBoing summarizes this article in The Independent about a new, violent baby naming trend in the US.
This xkcd comic shows which letters are most commonly used in the names of car models.… Read More
What do Jessica Simpson, Jennifer Lopez, Janet Jackson, Janice Dickenson, Julianne Moore, all have in common?
No, it is not just that their first names all begin with the letter “J”. What connects these five women, other than their fame and fortune, is the fact that all of them have (or at one time had) a Birkin Bag.
Considered by many to be of the world’s most expensive handbags on the market today, the Hermès creation was named after singer-actress Jane Birkin in the mid 1980’s. Now, some three decades later, Birkin has told reporters of the Agence France-Presse (AFP), that she has requested that Hermès “debaptise the Birkin Croco until better practice in line with international norms can be put in place.” Despite this reported request, a recent look at the Hermès website revealed that the handbag is still listed under the actresses’ surname. It remains to be seen whether the company will one day adhere to Ms. Birkin’s request and/or alter international leather production practices which PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) denounced as “appalling” and “gruesome” in a recent video report.
For more information see this article and this article.
The Dictionary of Medieval Names from European Sources will be holding special sessions on medieval cross-linguistic/cross-cultural onomastics at the Leeds International Medieval Congress, which is scheduled to take place from the 4th to the 7th of July 2016.
Researchers interested in presenting their work are encouraged to submit a100-200 word paper proposal no later than the 15th of September 2015 to eic[@]dmnes.org. In line with the multicultural focus of the planned sessions, proposed presentations may be held in several non-English languages including German, English, Spanish, French, and Italian. Questions about the event may be directed to the email listed above.
From the 17th to the 18th of September 2015, a workshop on Linking Models of Lexical, Sentential and Discourse-Level Semantics will be held in in Lisbon, Portugal. The goal of the workshop is to showcase theoretical and computational approaches to and applications of joint models of multi-level semantics.
Click here for a list of the papers which have been accepted for this interface between lexicographers, semanticists, and computational linguistics.
Click here for registration information.
Dr. Cleveland Evans writes about names for the Omaha World-Herald. This week’s column explores Lily.
