Dr. Cleveland Evans writes about names for the Omaha World-Herald. In his January 3rd column, he looks at the history of the name Maud.
Maud is a medieval form of Matilda, a Germanic name linking words for “power” and “battle.” Brought to England by Norman conquerors, it was best known through Empress Matilda (1102-1167), daughter of King Henry I, whose title came from her first marriage to Holy Roman Emperor Henry V.
When Henry I died in 1135, he wanted his daughter to be Queen. The English weren’t ready to accept a woman monarch, so a civil war between Matilda and her cousin Stephen ensued. This was settled in 1153 by declaring Stephen king, but making Matilda’s son Henry Plantagenet his heir. Though official records called her Matilda, in everyday English she was Empress Maud. Around 1380, “Matilda” was the fourth commonest woman’s name in English records, but was still “Maud” in spoken English.
Tennyson and Whittier made Maud popular, though by 1875 Americans preferred the spelling “Maude.” The first nationwide baby name lists in 1880 showed Maude ranking 21st and Maud 70th. Combined they would have been 13th.
At the meeting, members may present papers in formal theme sessions, participate in a toponymic fieldtrip and attend the annual general meeting of the Society. In 2021, the CSSN will meet as part of the Congress of the Humanites and Social Sciences 
The conference topics will be covered Toponymy in Cartography, Art in Cartography, Atlases, Cartographic Heritage into the Digital Domain, Cartography and Children, Cartography for Early Warning and Crisis Management, Cognition in Geovisualization, Education and Continuous Learning in Cartography, Generalization and Multiple Representation, Artificial Intelligence in Mapping, Social Sensing and Visual Analytics, History of Cartography etc.
The current issue of the Journal of African Onomastics