About Names: From Roman origins, a name that still hits the Mark

Mark Hamill at Star Wars: The Last Jedi Japan Premiere Red Carpet

Dr. Cleveland Evans writes about names for the Omaha World-Herald. In his June 5th column, he looks at the history of the name Mark.

Mark is the English form of Marcus, a common given name for ancient Roman men. It’s derived from Mars, Roman god of war. The most famous Roman Marcus is Marcus Antonius, called Mark Antony in English. A friend of Julius Caesar, he vied for power after Caesar’s death. His love affair and alliance with Cleopatra, leading to defeat and suicide in 33 B.C., have been portrayed in countless books and films.

In the 19th century, many Biblical names went out of style in America. The 1850 United States census included 7,623 Marks. In Britain, 17,193 were found in 1851, when the two countries had similar populations. In 1880, when Social Security’s yearly baby name lists began, Mark ranked 160th. By then, the most famous American Mark was Samuel Clemens (1835-1910), known by his pen name Mark Twain. Creator of beloved characters Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, Twain was one of the best known public figures of his day.

 Famous Marks born during the name’s heyday include investor and “Shark Tank” star Cuban (born 1958), Olympic swimmer Spitz (1950) and Luke Skywalker actor Hamill (1951).

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

Call for Papers (Third Extended Call): ANS 2019, New York City, NY, January 3-6, 2019

The ANS is inviting abstract submissions for the 2019 annual conference to be held in conjunction with the Linguistic Society of America.  Abstracts in any area of onomastic research are welcome. The deadline for receipt of abstracts is July 31, 2018.  To submit a proposal, simply complete the 2019 Author Information Form.

Please email this completed form to Dr. Dorothy Dodge Robbins using the following address: drobbins@latech.edu. For organizational purposes, please be sure to include the phrase “ANS 2019” in the subject line of your email. Presenters who may need additional time to secure international payments and travel visas to the United States are urged to submit their proposal as soon as possible.

All proposals will be subjected to blind review. Official notification of proposal acceptances will be sent on or before September 30, 2018. All authors whose papers have been accepted must be current members of the ANS and need to register with both the ANS and the Linguistic Society of America. Please feel free to contact Dr. Dorothy Dodge Robbins should you have any questions or concerns.

A downloadable PDF of the Call for Papers can be found here.

We look forward to receiving your submission!

Book Announcement: The Political Life of Urban Streetscapes: Naming, Politics, and Place

The Political Life of Urban Streetscapes: Naming, Politics, and Place
Edited by Reuben Rose-Redwood, Derek Alderman, Maoz Azaryahu
2018 Routledge
334 pages | 18 B/W Illus.

Streetscapes are part of the taken-for-granted spaces of everyday urban life, yet they are also contested arenas in which struggles over identity, memory, and place shape the social production of urban space. This book examines the role that street naming has played in the political life of urban streetscapes in both historical and contemporary cities. The renaming of streets and remaking of urban commemorative landscapes have long been key strategies that different political regimes have employed to legitimize spatial assertions of sovereign authority, ideological hegemony, and symbolic power. Over the past few decades, a rich body of critical scholarship has explored the politics of urban toponymy, and the present collection brings together the works of geographers, anthropologists, historians, linguists, planners, and political scientists to examine the power of street naming as an urban place-making practice. Covering a wide range of case studies from cities in Europe, North America, Sub-Saharan Africa, and Asia, the contributions to this volume illustrate how the naming of streets has been instrumental to the reshaping of urban spatial imaginaries and the cultural politics of place.

Why Meghan Markle spells her name the way she does

Meghan, Duchess of Sussex leaves Windsor Castle in the Ascot Landau carriage during a procession after getting married at St Georges Chapel on May 19, 2018 in Windsor, England. (Photo by Karwai Tang/WireImage)

On Saturday, May 19 2018, Meghan Markle married into the monarchy, bringing her misspelling and all. She will begin signing letters as “Meghan,” and the spelling will spread as children get named after the Duchess. The name historically acquired an “H” when the Welsh name was confused with Irish ones.

The first Megan hardly died 50 years ago, but parents have gotten straight to the business of misspelling it. Megan Lloyd George (1902 – 1966) was the first woman MP in Wales and the daughter of a British Prime Minister. Before her birth, the name was merely a nickname for Margaret, but her parents made it a first name itself, according to the ANS’ own Cleveland Evans:

He explained authors confused Megan with the Irish last names Meighan and Mehegan, and in 1977, a character by novelist Colleen McCullough brought the mothership: Meghann.

Click through to this article at Macleans, written by Meagan Campbell, to find out more!

About Names: Jackson and Sophia are really on top, not Liam and Emma, in 2017 US baby names

Dr. Cleveland Evans writes about names for the Omaha World-Herald. In his May 22nd column, he looks at the latest rankings of US baby names in 2017.

On May 11, the Social Security Administration released the United States’ top baby names of 2017. On SSA’s lists, Liam and Emma rank first. Emma’s been No. 1 since 2014. Liam beat out Noah, which was on top the previous three years. But SSA counts every spelling as a separate name. Each year, I add together spellings probably pronounced the same to create lists I think more accurately reflect name popularity.

When boys named Jaxon, Jaxson, Jakson, etc., are added to Jackson, 23,903 were born in 2017, ranking it first for the fifth year in a row. When Sofia and other spellings are added, 23,144 Sophias arrived in 2017. Sophia’s been No. 1 on my list since 2011. Last year, 11 percent more Sophias were born than Olivias, the No. 2 girls’ name.

Want to know more? Read on to find out more about the top 2017 names in the US!

How many Bay Area place names have you been mispronouncing?

Accent marks are missing in place names all over the Bay Area. Many neighborhoods and streets are named after Spanish explorers. Some of those names once had accent marks. But now, without them, we don’t know if we’re saying them right. In this news story at KALW, you can listen to the different ways residents pronounce the name of their neighborhood in San Francisco. 

And find out about the history of San Francisco’s Portola district. Don Gaspar de Portola was a Spanish explorer. Historians believe he discovered the San Francisco Bay in the 1700s. He was also the first Governor of Spanish-ruled California, before it was a state.  After the miners struck gold and San Francisco rapidly grew, most people living here didn’t know about Portola. And those that did, forgot about him. How did a neighborhood end up named after him?

The Baby Name Trend That Unites America: Vowels

The Social Security Administration has recently released its annual list of the United States’ most popular baby names and one thing is clear: American parents love vowels. Continuing an on-and-off reign that began in 2008, “Emma” took the top slot for newborn girls’ names. “Liam” became the most popular name for boys for the first time ever. Both, notably, have a 1:1 ratio of consonants to vowels.

This is true up and down the list: Vowels accounted for at least half of the letters in all but one of the most popular girls’ names (Charlotte). Boys’ names are slightly less vowel-heavy: They make up at least half of the letters in four of the 10 most popular boys’ names, but many of the rest are close, with just slightly fewer vowels than consonants.

Want to know more about this trend? Click through to this article at the Atlantic for details and analysis!