Standardization of geographical names – why does it matter?

In today’s digital world, standardized geographical names are vital. They help us find our way in society and they also help us organize the world we live in. They also play a key role in our efforts to achieve sustainable development, providing fundamental channels of communication, facilitating cooperation among local, national and international organizations.

This month, the “new” United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names (UNGEGN) will convene for its 2019 Session from 29 April to 3 May 2019 at UN Headquarters in New York. The session, organized by UN DESA’s Statistics Division, brings together over 150 experts from national naming authorities and academia to discuss strategies and methodologies by which the standardization of geographical names can be advanced.

Call for Papers: ANS 2020, New Orleans, LA, January 2-5, 2020

The American Name Society (ANS) is now inviting proposals for papers for its next annual conference. The 2020 conference will 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 30, 2019. To submit a proposal, simply complete the 2020 Author Information Form.

Please email this completed form to ANS Vice President Laurel Sutton using the following address: <laurelasutton@gmail.com>. For organizational purposes, please be sure to include the phrase “ANS 2020” 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, 2019. 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 or Laurel Sutton 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!

Speaker Series: “Place Names of Contra Costa” April 28 2019, Lafayette, California, USA

Why are place names important? Many names have long since disappeared but are still found on old maps and documents. Some names have interesting or amusing stories attached to them. Others have been misunderstood. Several have mysterious origins and some have fascinating historic events associated with them. This talk will briefly explore a few of these aspects behind historic place names. This compilation stems from years assisting researchers and genealogists at the Contra Costa County Historical Society.

William Mero – Author of “Shadows on the Hills” is the guest speaker on Sunday, April 28, 2019 at 3:30 p.m. in the Lafayette Library & Learning Center’s Don Tatzin Community Hall.

The “This Place” project on the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander place names

Do you know the meaning of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander place names? What’s the story behind them? It’s time to find out.

From the name of a town or suburb; to a street or bridge; a creek or a bend in the river; mountain; landmark; outcrop; tree – place names are a starting point for sharing Australia’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander history and cultures. ‘This Place’ invites Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people to create a short video about a place name, and the story behind it. The This Place project is produced by ABC in partnership with First Languages Australia.

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.