Honolulu seeks feedback on Hawaiian names for train stations

The Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation announced the list of proposed Hawaiian names for the 12 rail stations between Pearl Harbor and Ala Moana Center.

The names were recommended by the HART Hawaiian Station Naming Working Group, which considered diverse community knowledge, oral accounts and written history to come up with the names with the goal of reflecting forgotten place names and significant sites in Hawaiian culture. The group previously recommended names for the rail stations between Aloha Stadium and Kapolei. Hawaiian names for rail stations help to keep alive the traditions, culture and history of this special place.

Spanish and Indian place names of California: Their Meaning and Their Romance

This is a git repository of the source files for the book “Spanish and Indian place names of California: Their Meaning and Their Romance” by Nellie Van de Grift Sanchez. It is a Project Gutenberg book, now on Github. https://www.GITenberg.org/

Project Gutenberg is a project to collect and archive public domain texts and is the source of this book. Project Gutenberg (PG) is a volunteer effort to digitize and archive cultural works, to “encourage the creation and distribution of eBooks”. It was founded in 1971 by Michael S. Hart and is the oldest digital library. Most of the items in its collection are the full texts of public domain books. The project tries to make these as free as possible, in long-lasting, open formats that can be used on almost any computer. As of July 2012, Project Gutenberg claimed over 40,000 items in its collection.

 

Call for Papers: The Fourth Annual International Conference on Languages, Linguistics, Translation and Literature, Ahwaz, Iran, February 1-2 2020

The Fourth Annual International Conference on Languages, Linguistics, Translation and Literature is organized by different universities and research centers. Academics and university lecturers are cordially invited to present their research regarding current issues of linguistics, languages, dialects, literature and translation in English, Arabic or Persian. The conference will be an opportunity for academics, university lecturers and researcher to share their latest research findings and to keep abreast of the most recent developments in the field. Researchers and scholars from around the world are invited to submit their papers to be evaluated for inclusion in the conference program. The abstracts will be evaluated by International Scientific Committee Members based on their originality, novelty, rigor and relevance to the conference theme. The accepted papers will be scheduled for oral or poster presentations. The selective full papers of the conference will be published as the book of conference and also will be indexed in CIVILICA (however, the book of abstracts will be published too).

The deadline for submission of abstracts is 30th November 2019.

Click here for registration and submission information.

About Names: Kristen (or Kristin or Kirsten) has been through many changes

American actress Kristen Stewart

Dr. Cleveland Evans writes about names for the Omaha World-Herald. In his April 9th column, he looks at the history of the name Kristen – and Kristin and Kirsten.

Kristen is a Scandinavian form of “Christian.” The original Swedish title of John Bunyan’s “Pilgrim’s Progress,” the famous allegory where Christian travels from Destruction to the Celestial City, was “Kristens Resa” (“Christian’s Journey”). The Latin feminine of Christian was Christiana. In Scandinavia, this became Kristina. Inge the Elder, first Christian king of Sweden, named his daughter Kristina around 1075. By 1100, Kristin was used as a short form.

In Scandinavia, Kristen is male and Kristin female. In Denmark, parents can’t legally give names that don’t clearly designate gender, and all Kristens are male. Of course, in Scandinavia, Kristin is said more like how Americans pronounce “Christine” than how we say “Kristen.”

Kristin was the more common spelling until 1973, when Kristen took over. Kristin was back on top, though, when both names hit their high points between 1979 and 1982, while Mary Crosby starred as conniving Kristin Shephard on “Dallas”. Kristin was the answer to “Who Shot J.R.?,” the biggest season-ending cliffhanger in TV history. In 1981, Kristin, Kristen, Kristyn, Kristan, Cristin, Christin and Christen together accounted for 20,161 newborns, with a combined rank of 10th.

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

Lecture: “Medieval Landscapes of East Oxford through Place Names”, April 24 2019, Oxford (UK)

KATIE HAMBROOK will speak on “Medieval Landscape of East Oxford through Place Names” in Cowley History Group. They meet at The Venue, 242b, Barns Road, Cowley OX4 3RQ (opposite Templars Square Shopping Centre (on main bus route). They meet the last Wednesday in the month. Free Refreshments served from 6.30pm and after the Speaker.

Further information:
Call: 07392 606040 or 07754 406060
Email: eric.cowleyhistory@yahoo.com

Call for proposals: Changing Geographical Names as a Challenge for Research and Gazetteer Management, September 9-11 2019, Marburg, Germany

In 2019, researchers from the Herder Institute, the Leibniz Institute for Regional Geography in Leipzig and the Justus Liebig University Giessen will start work on a project exploring the content and metadata structure of existing gazetteers. The project team will bring together historians, geographers and computer scientists. At the first workshop of their project, they will address the questions like : What do the various disciplines expect of gazetteers? How will research institutes further develop existing gazetteers? etc.

The workshop will take place on 9-11 September 2019 in Marburg, Germany. Please submit a short proposal highlighting the main aspects of your contribution. Please send your proposal, no later than 13th May 2019, to laura.gockert@herder-institut.de.

Toponymy is key to unlocking history of Chinese civilization

From the earliest times in China’s history, there have been studies focusing on ancient place names. Since the formation of modern toponymy, more and more scientific methods have been applied. Since the launch of the China Geographical Names Cultural Heritage Protection Project in 2004, the protection and research of toponymy has attracted wide attention of academic circles.

There are more than 100,000 ancient place names covering China’s existing political districts, settlements, mountains, rivers and roads. Tan Ruwei, professor from the Cultural Geography Research Center at Tianjin Normal University, said that toponymy contains not only geographical, but also social and cultural phenomena.

Read about the secret of Chinese toponyms here.

Program of the 28th SNSBI Spring Conference 2019

The 28th annual conference of the Society for Name Studies in Britain and Ireland will take place at the University of Nottingham from 26 to 29 April 2019. The University of Nottingham is home to the Institute for Name-Studies and has a long-standing connection with the field, housing the library and offices of the English Place-Name Society for over fifty years. The conference will bring together papers on a wide range of topics from Britain, Ireland and further afield, including the Cameron Lecture, to be given by Professor Lesley Abrams on the Saturday evening.

The program and abstracts can be found here.

ONOMA Journal got a new website

International Council of Onomastic Sciences is excited to announce the launch of our newly-designed and upgraded website for the ICOS Journal ONOMA: https://onomajournal.org

The Vol. 50 has just been finalized. You may find this issue and upload from the Archive: https://onomajournal.org/archive/. The issues 51 and 52 should be finalized this spring, as well!

Founded in 1950, Onoma (ISSN: 0078-463X; e-ISSN: 1783-1644) is the oldest journal in the field of onomastics. Since the Vol. 32, Onoma has been inviting topical research reports as well as articles and reviews of general, theoretical and historical interest concerning all areas of scholarly name research.  It accepts studies written in English, French, and German, which are double-blind peer-reviewed, following the highest standards of current international practice.

Kyiv City Council renames street to honor John McCain

Kyiv City Council on April 4 voted to rename Ivan Kudrya Street in central Kyiv John McCain Street. The initiative was supported by 71 of 120 deputies of the City Council. Kiev authorities also received consent from the family of the American politician.

The name of Senator McCain will now bear the street Hero of the Soviet Union, Ivan Kudrya. During World War II, he was a scout and led an underground reconnaissance and sabotage group in Kiev. The authorities in Kiev chose this street because McCain fought for democratic values ​​and “defended the interests of Ukraine,” the website says. Residents of the city also offered to name the street in honor of the senator – they, together with public organizations, registered the appropriate petition.