BoingBoing summarizes this article in The Independent about a new, violent baby naming trend in the US.
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Jane Birkin Asks Hermès to Take Her Name Off Its Celeb-Loved Croc Bags
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.
Onomastics Sessions at the Leeds International Medieval Congress, July 4-7 2016
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.
Workshop on Linking Models of Lexical, Sentential and Discourse-Level Semantics, Lisbon, Portugal, September 17-18 2015
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.
About Names: With Tomlin’s help, Lily blossoms again
Dr. Cleveland Evans writes about names for the Omaha World-Herald. This week’s column explores Lily.
Symposium on Places and Place Names, Adelaide, Australia, September 25, 2015
On Friday, the 25th of September 2015, a special symposium on Places and Place Names will be held at Flinders University in Adelaide, Australia. The Guest Speaker for the event will be Dr. Alice Gorman who will be lecturing on “Placenames in Outer Space”. Directly after the Symposium, the Annual General Meeting of Placenames Australia (Inc.) will be held.
For more information refer to the September newsletter of the Australian National Placenames Survey (ANPS) or contact Dr. D. Lonergan, Director ANPS.
Iceland names street after Darth Vader
Boing Boing reports that “the Reykjavík City Council has approved a citizen-led effort to rename a street Svarthöfði, translated as Blackhead, which is the Icelandic name for Darth Vader.”
Click here for more information.
The Structure of University Names
Names have linguistic structure. For more about the syntax of university names, see this article, published by the Chronicle of Higher Education.
California’s infamous fires earn names
For the past four years, residents of California have been battling one of the most severe droughts in the state’s history. As a result, California is currently witnessing one of the worst fire seasons ever.
From July into August, firefighters found themselves battling a fire system named the “Rocky Fire” which burned almost 70 thousand acres of land. In general, fires are named after the area where they are believed to have started.
Other infamous California fires that have earned official names include:
- the 2012 Rush Fire
- the Cedar Fire of 2003
One of the worst wildfires in California history, the Cedar Fire is also known by two names that express its devastating size: Fire Siege of 2003 and 2003 Firestorm.
Popular Japanese kanji name characters of 2014
In Japan, last year was the “Year of the Horse”. As a result, many of the most popular boys’ names for 2014 included the kanji character for horse, for example,駿, 悠馬 .
Topping the list of most popular kanji characters used for boys’ names in 2014 was 蓮 or “ren” which means “sacred lotus”. Amongst the girls’ names, one of the most commonly appearing characters was 凛, which according to Japan Today means “dignified” and “gallant”.
See this article and this article for more information.