49th Annual

Ehrensperger Report

2003

 

 

PREFACE

The Ehrensperger Report is a publication of the American Name Society (ANS).  This document marks the 49th year of its publication.  As usual, it is a partial view of the research and other activity going on in the world of onomastics, or name study.  It is named in honor of Edward C. Ehrensperger, one of the founders of ANS, who for over twenty-five years, from 1955 to 1982, compiled and published this annual review of scholarship.

In a report of this kind, the editor must make use of what comes in, often resulting in unevenness.  Some of the entries are very short; some extensive, especially from those who are reporting not just for themselves but also for the activity of a group of people.  In all cases, I have assumed the prerogative of an editor and have abridged, clarified, and changed the voice of many of the submissions.

I have encouraged the submission of reports by email or electronically, since it is much more efficient to edit text already typed than to type the text myself.  For those not using email, I strongly encourage sending me written copy. There is some danger, however, in depending on electronic copy: sometimes diacritical marks or other formatting matters may not have come through correctly. 

Again this year, you will notice an important change in the format of the report.  Because this report is to be posted on the World-Wide Web, rather than include addresses and telephone numbers as part of the entry, I have gathered those that were submitted in a separate list.  The list, such as it is, is available to current members of the American Name Society through a request to me at mmcgoff@binghamton.edu.

In keeping with the spirit of onomastics and the original Ehrensperger Report, I have attempted where possible to report on research and publication under a person’s name.  I have also attempted to locate topics of interest and then cross-list them with one or more names.  This approach results in an incomplete index, but it should permit locating many of the important areas of research over the last year.  In the main entries, I have listed the last names of contributors entirely in capitals.  When you see a name or topic in capital letters and underlined in the body of an entry you should expect to find a main entry in its proper alphabetical order.

For the web version that can be found at http://www.wtsn.binghamton.edu/ANS/, I have made liberal use of hypertext.  Many of the entries in underlined capital letters are also hyperlinks.  At the website simply clicking on them with will bring you to a reference in the text.  Most people’s names are hyperlinks as well.  In the main entry for a person if the name as heading is highlighted and underlined, putting your cursor on it will produce that person’s email address.  Clicking on it will produce an email addressed to them.  In the cross references, clicking on a person’s name will bring you to his or her main entry.  In some cases, clicking on a hyperlink will launch your browser and bring you to the website of that organization, much as what happened if you clicked above on the American Name Society hyperlink.  I hope that by again using hypertext in this year’s web version of the Ehrensperger Report, I have made it easier and more efficient to use.  If you have any comments or suggestions I would very much like to hear them.

 

Other Resources

 

Ren Vasiliev is the editor of the official journal of the American Name Society, Names: A Journal of Onomastics.  Look in the December issue for the latest style sheet.

Michael McGoff maintains the ANS Electronic Discussion Group.  If you wish to take part in the interesting discussions that often start up on this listserve, send an email message to the following address:

mailto:listserv@listserv.binghamton.edu

No “subject” is necessary, and the message must contain only one line:

sub ans-l yourfirstname yourlastname

The system will add your name and email address to the list and you will receive all notices that are posted.  You will also be able to send notices (You must join the list to do this).

Dr. McGoff also maintains the home pages for the American Name Society (ANS); the Toponymy Interest Group and Who Was Who in North American Name Study of ANS.

 

The Ehrensperger Report

Michael F. McGoff, Vice Provost

Binghamton University

State University of New York

Binghamton, New York 13902-6000

mmcgoff@binghamton.edu

 

© American Name Society, 2004

 

49th Annual

 Ehrensperger Report

December 2003

 

 

 

 

 

Frank ABATE continues his work on a Dictionary of Placenames for the United States.  He plans that “the dictionary section will include some 2,500 entries of greatest significance, and several chapters treating important themes and patterns in the history of placenaming in the United States.”  Mr. Abate “drove cross-country in 2003 to document and better understand the significance of the westward movement, and to study first-hand the historical, cultural, and geographical aspects that help explain the reasons behind the names.”  During his trip he visited American Name Society members Thomas GASQUE in Vermillion, South Dakota [ed. note – Professor Gasque has since moved to South Carolina], and Grant SMITH in Spokane, Washington, both of whom, he adds, “were very gracious hosts.”   Frank presented a paper on his placenames research at the Dictionary Society of North America (DSNA) conference at Duke University in May.

We are happy to report that Mr. Abate says that he is “back at work and feeling much better after some health setbacks in late summer and fall,” and that he hopes that 2004 will be a very productive year for him.

 

Wolfgang AHRENS. See KERFOOT

 

John ALGEO says that he has little to report in onomastics for this period but sends his “warmest regards” to his ANS colleagues.

 

American Dialect Society (ADS). See Popik

 

American Folklore Society.  See NICOLAISEN.

 

American Name Society. (ANS) See MCGOFF

 

American Society Of Geolinguistics. See Ashley, FINKE, Levitt

 

ANS Website.  See McGoff

 

Antarctic Names. See Yost

 

Leonard R. N. ASHLEY, is Professor Emeritus, Brooklyn College of the City University of New York.  He has recently published five books on onomastics: Names in Literature, Names of Places, Names in Popular Culture, Art Attack: Essays on Names in Literature, and Cornish Names.  All are available from Author House http://www.authorhouse.com/home.asp (phone 800-839-8640). He also produced for Barricade Books, in 2002 and 2003, the latest in his series of books on the occult: The Complete Book of Dreams and What They Mean, (the 9th book, 2002) and The Complete Book of Sex Magic (the 10th book, 2003).  In 2003 a German translation, Geschichte der Magie, appeared in hardcover from Komet (Bergish Gladbach).  He continues to publish articles on various literary topics in scholarly journals. Two of many are “Unhappy all the Time”: Religion in Anthony Burgess’ Earthly Powers,” Christianity and Literature 52: 1 (Autumn 2002), 35 45, and “The Observed of All Observers: Hamlet on the Stage,” Hamlet Studies 24 (2002), 39 55.  Also in 2002 Dr. Ashley published “The Ethics of Academic Book Reviewing,” Journal of Information Ethics 11: 1 (Spring 2002), 37 51 and he addressed the American Society of Geolinguistics (ASG) and other organizations.  He continues to produce the chroniques, as he has for decades in Bibliothèque d’Humanisme et Renaissance (Geneva), over 100 pages of reviews on Renaissance art, history, and literature annually.  He wrote 42 book reviews in Geolinguistics 29 (2003), a journal he co-edits with Wayne H. FINKE and he published papers on geolinguistics, as well, in that journal during the period.  Professor Ashley read papers at the conference of the American Society of Geolinguistics, which appear in the proceedings he edited with Professor Finke, Language and Identity (2002) and Language in the Era of Globalization (2003).  The first international conference brought together 60 speakers from more than two dozen foreign countries as well as the U.S.  The second conference had 50 participants from 24 countries.  The keynote speaker for 2002 was Leigh Oakes (University of London), and Hans Hansen from the University of Copenhagen was keynote speaker for 2003.  Professors Ashley and Finke are already inviting proposals for papers to be delivered at the ASG conference: Language and Politics to be held in Fall 2004 at Baruch CUNY.  ANS members are urged to submit proposals on the subject names and politics to Dr. FINKE.

In 2002 Professor Ashley’s collected geolinguistic essays were published in the U.K., U.S., and India by Wisdom House http://www.wisdomhouse.co.uk/ as Language in Modern Society.  A second volume, Language in Action, is in press for 2004 publication by Wisdom House.  His article on literary onomastics will appear in the special issue of Onoma being edited by Professor Thomas GASQUE. Dr. Ashley’s “Time for New Directions in Literary Onomastics” appeared in Onomata 16 (1999/2002).  Still to come, he says are books on names in Turkey and Mexico, the folklore of Scandinavia (with Ola J. Holten).

 

Australian Placenames.  See Flavia HODGES

 

Herbert BARRY III is Professor Emeritus at the University of Pittsburgh.  At the annual meeting of the American Name Society in December 2002 in New York City, he presented a paper “Increase from 1990 to 2000 in Diversity of First Names Given in Pennsylvania.”  His “measure of the 50% name rank is the number of most frequent names given to half of the population.”  This measure originated from his experience with a pharmaceutical measure, ED50, the dose of a drug that is effective for 50% of the population, during his tenure as a Professor of Pharmaceutical Sciences in the University of Pittsburgh School of Pharmacy,

Professor Barry and Aylene S. HARPER analyzed changes from 1990 to 2000 in the 100 most frequent male and female names of United States residents, from census data.  The information was summarized in an article “Persistent Popularity of Male Last Letter in Female First Names.” It appears in A Garland of Names: Selected papers of the Fortieth Names Institute (2003), edited by Wayne H. FINKE and Leonard R. N. ASHLEY, published by Cummings & Hathaway, NY.  An article by Barry and Harper, “Final Letter Compared with Final Phoneme in Male and Female Names,” is in Names: A Journal of Onomastics, vol. 51, pp. 13-33 (2003).  The latter article reoriented and amplified the information and included United States Social Security Administration information on frequency of the final letter y in male and female names in ten decades, from 1900-1909 to 1990-1999. Barry and Harper are presently preparing an article on increasing diversity of first names from 1991 to 2000 among births in Pennsylvania.  Diversity is greater for females than males and especially greater for African Americans than Caucasians.  They are also preparing a paper on differences in consistency of sex differentiation among first names in four languages: Latin, Spanish, French, and English.

 

C. Richard BEAM is “still collecting Pennsylvania German placenames,” which, he says, are “harder to find because the old-timers are gone.”  He and his colleagues at The Center for Pennsylvania German Studies at Millersville University continue to review their field notes and tapes from the past 30 years and still find valuable information.  He adds, “One of the earliest of the placenames to appear was Kaahle Barig near Denver, PA.”  He says that it is so called because of the areas “lack of trees.”

 

Thomas L. BERNARD, Emeritus Professor of Education and Psychology at Springfield College in Massachusetts, published the following during the period:

·       “Onomastica Geographica, Or, Where in the World is my First Name From?” American Name Society Bulletin #103, November 2002.

 

BGN. See U.S. Board on Geographic Names

 

Biblical Onomastics.  See DEMSKY

 

Bibliography.  See Powell

 

Biomedical names. See MANDEL

 

Brand Names.  See Clankie

 

William BRIGHT, Professor Emeritus of Linguistics & Anthropology at UCLA, continues to write his quarterly "Placename Column" on U.S. Placenames of American Indian origin for the newsletter of the Society for the Study of the Indigenous Languages of the Americas (SSILA).  Recent titles are "Chicorica, NM: 'little cup,' 'spotted bird,' 'rich child'?" (Jan. 2002) and "The Frozen Logger: Michigan, Michillimackinac, Mackinac, Mackinaw" (Apr. 2002).  He gave a talk about his work at the July 2002 meeting of COGNA in Baltimore.  In May 2002, he completed his five-year project, under a contract with the University of Oklahoma, to prepare a large etymological dictionary for U.S. placenames of American Indian origin, under the working title Native American Placenames of the U.S. (NAPUS).  The volume is currently being printed and should be available in the very near future.  Professor Bright’s website is: http://www.ncidc.org/bright.  See also HODGES.

 

Enzo CAFFARELLI continues to serve as Editor of RIOn (Rivista Italiana di Onomastica – Italian Onomastic Review); to redact the Dictionary of Italian Family Names that is to appear at the end of 2005; and to publish many articles and notes in the press in order to promote the knowledge of names to a larger public.

RIOn has dedicated a special issue in 2003 to unpublished, rare and uncollected works by Emidio De Felice, the most eminent Italian scholar of personal and family names in the second half of 20th century.  The work was edited by Dr. Caffarelli with Rita Caprini (University of Genoa). 

Other recent publications:

·       Enzo Caffarelli (with Doreen Gerritzen), “Frequenze onomastiche. I prenomi del 2000: i più diffusi in 40 Paesi del mondo”  (The most frequent names in the world at the end of 2nd Millennium), Rivista Italiana di Onomastica, VIIII, 2002, 2, p. 631-710.

·       “L’alimentazione nell’onomastica. L’onomastica nell’alimentazione” (Foods in the names, names in the foods), in Saperi e sapori mediterranei. La cultura dell’alimentazione e i suoi riflessi linguistici (eds. A. Marra, I. Pinto, D. Silvestri), Napoli, University “L’Orientale” 2002, p. 143-173.

·       Cognomi italiani da toponimi tra distribuzione territoriale e ricerca etimologica. Aspetti morfologici, motivazioni storiche e nuove proposte classificatorie (Italian surnames from toponyms between territorial distribution and etymology. Morphological aspects historic motivations and new classification),  Studi sçi cercetari de Onomastica,  Craiova, 7 (2002), pp. 11-42.

Dr. Caffarelli participated in many congresses and seminars, particularly in Naples (“Onomastics & Literature”) where he presented a paper on the choice of family names in the Eduardo De Filippo theatre; and in Zadar Croatia, (“Name, National Identity, and Nationalism”) with a paper on the names of properties in the game of “Monopoly” throughout the world.  He was invited by the University of Basel (Switzerland) to two conferences on the contribution of onomastic studies and proper names to the Lexicography.

Having concluded his collaboration as Italian correspondent and revisor for the Dictionary of American Family Names, published in the spring by Oxford University Press (DAFN, with more than 5,500 entries derived from Italian surnames). The first volume of another international project (PatRom, or Patronymica Romanica), an historic dictionary of Roman anthroponymics, on which Dr. Caffarelli has collaborated since 1994, is “finally ready.”  He has, additionally, prepared a study on proper names including numbers, for a miscellaneous volume, Linguistics and Numbers, one of the products of a project conducted in 2001-2003 by 4 Italian universities.  Research on nicknames in the Roman world is explored with another study on logonyms (words used to indicate words) fixed in the Italian family names’ repertoire.

He submitted a proposal for an International Centre of Onomastics to be approved, financed and hosted by the 2nd University of Rome “Tor Vergata.”

Dr. Caffarelli has been appointed as a consultant for a group studying the international onomastic bibliography – by the ICOS board (International Council of Onomastic Sciences).  It is to appear as soon as possible on line.  Finally, he was asked to be an onomastic consultant to the International Institute of Genealogical Studies and History of Family, sponsored by the International Academy of Genealogy.

He is presently co-organizing, along with the Academy of Sciences of Croatia and other international linguistic institutions, a new symposium in Zadar (in the Summer of 2004).  It will focus on the linguistic status of proper names and proper names derived from the lexicon.

 

Canadian Society for the Study of Names (CSSN).  On May 29 and 30, 2004, the CSSN will hold its annual meeting in association with the Congress of Social Sciences and Humanities, at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg.  One or more sessions will be devoted to “Confluence: Ideas, Identities, and Place.”  American Name Society members interested in making a presentation at the CSSN meeting should contact Professor Bill Davey, the program chair (wdavey@uccb.ns.ca), before February 16.  Please access the CSSN website for further information about the Society’s past programs (http://geonames.nrcan.gc.ca/info/cssn_e.php).

 

Jon CAMPBELL of the United States Geological Survey says that he has no research to report for this period.

 

Marvin D. CARMONY extends his greetings and reports that he has “no reportable activity for this period.”

 

C.M. CARNES is applying for admission to doctoral programs, “preferably in the U.K.,” that will “let [him] use material he has already collected on 14th century names in Gloucestershire.”

 

D. Allen CARROLL, of the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, stepped down in summer, 2002, after more than a decade as head of its Department of English.  He writes that his “recent work in names and literature is reflected in three ways”: 

·       A presentation on “The Meaning of ‘E. K.’” - one of the great mysteries of Edmund Spenser scholarship, initials that appear to stand for the author of the editorial apparatus to The Shepheardes Calender (1579), which he will present in April at the Renaissance Society of America’s Conference in New York City and as well, he hopes, at the Southeastern Renaissance Conference in Durham, North Carolina. 

·       A paper in Spenser Studies (Vol. 16 [2002]) on how to read the rebuses (pictures intended to stand for names) that occur as doodles in the margin of a newly found poem (dated 1588) in praise of Spenser’s Faerie Queene.  Three rebuses (on toes and mazes and hares named “Wat”) suggest that Thomas Watson wrote the poem and two on sacrifices (hecatombs) refer to Watson’s major work Hekatompathia (1582). 

·       Two notes in Cahiers élisabéthains, in fall 2003, on a possible source of Midsummer Night’s Dream (in Macabbes) that may have suggested, among other features, the names Demetrius and Lysander and on why the name “Demetrius” is referred to in that play as a “vile name,” about which there has been some dispute for some time.

 

Clive CHEESMAN, a relatively new member of the American Name Society, is Rouge Dragon Pursuivant at the College of Arms in London. 

 

Chinese-American Names.  See Louie

 

Chinese Family Names. See LI

 

Shawn CLANKIE, after spending four years in a visiting lectureship at Hokkaido University in Sapporo, Japan, moved in April 2003 to nearby Otaru to take up a tenured position as Associate Professor of English and Applied Linguistics at Otaru University of Commerce.  In 2003, he presented the following papers:

In December 2002, Professor Clankie’s book A Theory of Genericization on Brand Name Change appeared (Edwin Mellen Press).

Also of note during this period, the U.S. 7th Court of Appeals made reference to Dr. Clankie’s work in their decision of the case of Ty Inc. vs. Ruth Perryman (Case 02-1771), a dispute of the generic use of “Beanies.”

          In addition to continuing his work on brand names, Dr. Clankie has begun collecting information for a potential book on naming in Japan.  He also has co-authored a TESL textbook (with T. Kobayashi), The Earth and Our Health that appeared in November 2003 (Seibido).

More about Professor Clankie can be found at his website:

http://www.otaru-uc.ac.jp/~shawn.

 

Grady CLAY continues to produce his “Crossing the American Grain” for broadcast on Public Radio’s Morning Edition.  In a recent offering, he refutes another author’s assertion that “language follows society” and counters that “Language Leads Society.”  He adds “there can be NO community without the vehicle of language to carry its common heritage, to express its history, and its body of customs.”   Mr. Clay recently published a book of his Crossing the American Grain commentaries.

 

COGNA.  See Council of Geographic Names Authorities.

 

Gerald L. COHEN, at the University of Missouri-Rolla, states that his “main work this past year has been the third (and last) volume of his Dictionary of 1913 Baseball And Other Lingo:  Primarily from the Baseball Columns of the San Francisco Bulletin, February to May 1913.  Volume 3: Q-Z (published by the author, 2003).  Cost: $25 (+ $5 shipping).  He adds that “most entries are not onomastic, but a few do appear, e.g., 'Topnotcherville,' 'Tublets' (humorous diminutive of Seals' catcher 'Tub' Spencer), 'Shoeless Joe Jackson' (re: an incident which might have given him his nickname), numerous names for the local baseball team, the Seals.

          In addition Professor Cohen published in Comments on Etymology:  Emanuel Mofor Ayafor Foyere: “Personal Names of Cameroon's Awing Tribe,” Volume 32, no. 8, May 2003, pp.42-45; “Origin of Edna St. Vincent Millay's Middle Name” (Reprint of Denis Gaffney’s 4 Sept. 2001 New York Times letter-to-the-editor), Volume 32, no. 1, Oct. 2002, pp. 15-16; and Barry POPIK: “Antedating ‘I'm from Missouri, you've got to show me’ by one year, to 1897,” Volume 32, no. 7, April 2003, pp. 23 25.

 

Coltharp, Lurline H., Collection of Onomastics

 

Council of Geographic Names Authorities (COGNA). See BRIGHT, MCArthur, Payne, RUNYON.

 

CSSN.  See Canadian Society for the Study of Names.

 

Dictionary of American Family Names.  (DAFN)  See TUCKER; CAFFARELLI

 

Danish Placenames.  See Fellows-Jensen

 

Aaron DEMSKY, who is Director of The Project for the Study of Jewish Names at Bar-Ilan University in Israel, sent an extensive report that includes the program and abstracts for the 6th International Conference on Jewish Names which was held June 11, 2003 at Bar-Ilan University.   Included as well in his report is a full description of the book that he edited: These Are The Names -Studies in Jewish Onomastics Volume 4 (Ramat-Gan, Israel).  This volume of These Are The Names honors our eminent colleague Professor Edwin D. LAWSON on the occasion of his eightieth birthday.

          Those interested in purchasing this series or single volumes should contact press@mail.biu.ac.il or Professor Demsky.

          If you would like to read Professor Demsky’s full report, Click Here.

 

Christine DE VINNE, Dean of the School of Arts and Sciences at Ursuline College in Ohio, served in her first year as president of the American Name Society.  She continues to study the uses of names in literature, especially in areas related to “life writing” with attention to the theory and use of names in autobiography.  Dr. DeVinne presented “Shaker Placenames: Mapping Theology and Communal Biography” at the 2002 ANS conference in New York City and “Naming the Family Business: Personal Names and Corporate Names” at the 2003 conference in San Diego.  She is working on a study of confession in American autobiography.

 

Digital Gazetteer of the United States.  See PAYNE

 

Sheila EMBLETON, Vice President, Academic at York University in Toronto, writes that she did not publish anything specifically in onomastics during the period.  Much of her time was taken up as the chief academic officer at the university during a “double cohort year (two high school classes arriving at once!).” 

Her non-onomastic items for the period are:

Dean Embleton also received a grant (with Dorin Uritescu) from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRCC) for the period 2003-2006.  It is a Research Grant for $90,382 which will support her work on The Romanian Online Dialect Atlas.  She also acted as a referee -- for a variety of journals, for various granting agencies, and for tenure and promotion cases at various universities.

 

Cleveland Ken EVANS.  See LIEBERSON.

 

Family Names.  See Personal Names

 

Gillian FELLOWS-JENSEN, published:

          Dr. Fellows-Jensen also organised (with Peter Springborg) the Eighth International Seminar on Care and Conservation of Manuscripts at the University of Copenhagen. There were over 120 participants.

          Her current projects include: Scandinavian Placenames in the Isle of Man; English Influence on Scandinavian Placenames in the Isle of Man; Scandinavian Street Names in York; and the Norse Sources Dealing with Scandinavian Settlement in America.

 

Wayne H. FINKE, Professor at Baruch College, CUNY, is Secretary of the Faculty and Deputy Chair of the Department of Modern Languages.  He is the Secretary of the American Society of Geolinguistics and each year edits its journal (Vol. 29 - 2003 ran to 378 pages with articles, over 50 book reviews and nearly 200 pages of notes on geolinguistics worldwide.  Professor Finke recently directed the international conference Language in the Era of Globalization, October 2-4, 2003 with 50 participants representing two dozen countries.  Next year's conference will be on the topic Language and Politics and ANS members are “invited to address any of the many ways in which names and placenames are affected by politics.”

Professor Finke continues as director of the Names Institute, which meets the first Saturday in May each year.  In November 2002 he co-edited with Leonard R. N. Ashley the papers of the gala 40th anniversary of the Names Institute as A Garland of Names.  It was published in memory of E. Wallace McMullen, a long time member of the American Name Society and founder of the Names Institute.

The Journal of the American Society of Geolinguistics (2003) was dedicated to the memory of Allen Walker Read, one of the founders of ANS, and contains an appreciation by Jesse Levitt and an article written years ago by Professor Read but hitherto unpublished.  May 1, 2004 will be the 43rd annual Names Institute and ANS members “are cordially invited to visit NYC and to participate in this congenial group.” Proposals for 15-minute papers on any aspect of names should reach Professor Finke by March 1, 2004 at Baruch College at wayne_finke@baruch.cuny.edu.

 

First Names.  See Personal Names

 

Food and Drink Names.  See POPIK

 

Douglas GALBI, a Senior Economist with the Federal Communications Commission, continues to consider how naming trends “provide evidence of more general changes in the information economy and communication.”  His recent work has documented the rise in popularity of the name Mary in sixteenth-century England and related that to the struggle over sense in communication and the development of Shakespeare's theatre.  (See Table 2, p. 99 and Appendix A in “Sense in Communication,” available at http://www.galbithink.org/).  He “encourages more scholars to consider how name frequencies provide insights into communications developments.” 

 

Thomas J. GASQUE retired from the University of South Dakota in May of 2003 and is now living in Columbia, South Carolina.  He hopes to continue doing some work with South Dakota placenames and to begin gradually working on the names of South Carolina.  As guest editor of Onoma 38, the 2003 issue of the annual journal of the International Council of Onomastic Sciences (ICOS), he is preparing articles by twelve onomastic scholars from the U.S. and Canada. Professor Gasque expects the publication to be ready in early 2004.  In September he attended the meeting of COGNA at the Asilomar Conference Grounds in Pacific Grove, California, and attended the annual meeting of the American Name Society in San Diego in December 2003.

 

Genealogy, Names in.  See Edmund MILLER

 

Generation Names.  See LI

 

Geographic Names Information System (GNIS).  See MCARTHUR, Payne

 

Geographical Names, Standardization of.  See  PAYNE

 

Geolinguistics.  See American Society of Geolinguistics

 

Given Names.  See Personal Names

 

Greek. See PARIANOU

 

Stephen P. HALUTIAK-HALLICK writes that he has “nothing to report” for this period.

 

Eric P. HAMP, of the Department of Linguistics at the University of Chicago, writes: “in the latest number of Érin [he] wrote about Romano-British (=British Celtic) Mona (Welsh Môn, in Caernarfon ‘caer yn Ar Fon,’ fortress in/over opposite Môn’) the name for Anglesey (the island of Angles).  It is “named from just its point.”

          During this period Dr. Hamp also published “Gaulish ci, -c, Old Irish cé, Ogam koi” in Celtica 24 2003.

 

Patrick HANKS, Editor in Chief of the Dictionary of American Family Names (DAFN) reports that, “after ten years' hard grind,” with contributions from over 30 leading scholars from around the world, the dictionary was finally published.  It contains over 70,000 entries, plus over 100 pages of introductory essays by the project’s main contributors.  Because frequency (as well as historical importance) was a criterion for selection of entries, coverage is good: over 85% of American will find an entry for their surnames in DAFN.  The publisher is Oxford University Press and it is in 3 volumes and 2064 pages.  The price is $295.00 (ISBN: 0195081374).  Mr. Hanks says, “corrections and comments from interested scholars, especially improvements for existing entries and data for possible additional entries, will be gratefully received.”

He adds that, currently, Ken Tucker, Kate Hardcastle, and he are beginning a study of family names in Great Britain, starting with a comparison of the relative frequencies of each name in the 1881 census and the 2001 Electoral Rolls.

See also CAFFARELLI, TUCKER

 

Aylene S. HARPER.  See BARRY

 

Flavia HODGES, Director of the Asia-Pacific Institute for Toponymy, sends the following report:

The Asia-Pacific Institute for Toponymy, based at Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia, came into being in late 2001, and is supported through 2006 with funds from the Vice-Chancellor's Millennium Innovations initiative.  The Institute currently employs a part-time research fellow, Flavia Hodges, and two part-time research associates, Susan Poetsch and Clair Hill.  Other, honorary, Institute members are senior research fellow David Blair and research associates Dale Lehner, Joyce Miles and William Noble. 

In addition to the Institute’s Education & Training Division (headed by Susan Poetsch) and Technical Toponymy Division (headed by Flavia Hodges), its Cultural Toponymy Division (headed by David Blair) hosts the Australian National Placenames Survey, which has a mission to investigate the history, origin and meaning of each name ever current for a landscape feature or inhabited place in Australia, and to make public the results of this research. 

The Land is a Map: Placenames of Indigenous Origin in Australia, edited by Luise Hercus, Flavia Hodges and Jane Simpson, was published in December 2003 by Pandanus Books (Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, Australian National University) in association with Pacific Linguistics.  It contains 18 papers, concerned with topics such as documenting Indigenous placenames, reconstructing Indigenous placename networks, the interaction between Indigenous and Introduced placenaming systems, and assigning and reinstating placenames of Indigenous origin.  A successor volume is in the planning stages.

Most of the papers in The Land is a Map were first presented at two day conferences sponsored by the ANPS (Canberra 1999 and Adelaide 2000), and a further colloquium on placenames of Indigenous origin was held at the Australian National University in conjunction with the launch of the volume.  In May 2002 members of the Institute had the pleasure of attending a seminar at the University of Sydney presented by William BRIGHT.

The newsletter Placenames Australia, currently edited by Clair Hill, is distributed quarterly, with issues in March, June, September and December.  Thanks to the generosity of the Intergovernmental Committee on Surveying and Mapping and the Committee for Geographical Names in Australasia we were able to include with the December 2002 issue a copy of their jointly developed CD-ROM What's in a Name? Australia's Geographical Names.  

Much of the work of the ANPS takes place at the level of State and Territory committees.  The committees for Victoria and New South Wales/Australian Capital Territory are currently particularly active and are working together to develop an appropriate database management system for the Survey as a whole.  The Aboriginal Names Subcommittee of the NSW/ACT Committee is also working closely with the NSW Geographical Names Board on an Aboriginal Geographical Naming Strategy that will seek to investigate and record traditional Indigenous placenames that do not form part of the present-day system of official placenames in the state. 

Members of the Institute have also continued outreach activities such as answering email enquiries, encouraging the work of research friends, making presentations to local historical societies and taking part in media interviews.

 

Indexing Names.  See Edmund MILLER.

 

International Council of Onomastic Sciences (ICOS). On behalf of ICOS, the 21st International Congress of Onomastic Sciences was organized at Uppsala, Sweden, August 19–24 2002 by Språk och folkminnesinstitutet (SOFI) (Institute for Dialectology, Onomastics and Folklore Research), in cooperation with Uppsala University and the Royal Gustavus Adolphus Academy for Swedish Folk Culture.   During the congress, which attracted approximately 375 participants, 219 papers were read.  At the General Meeting the President, Isolde Hausner, expressed warm thanks to Willy VAN LANGENDONCK, who after many years had retired as Editor-in-Chief for Onoma.  A new ICOS Board was elected with the following members: Mats WAHLBERG, President (Sweden), Albrecht Greule, Vice President (Germany), Grant SMITH, Vice President (USA), Richard Coates, Secretary (Great Britain), Martina Pitz, Vice Secretary (Germany), Karina van Dalem-Oskam, Treasurer (the Netherlands), Pierre-Henri Billy (France), Dunja Brozovic-Roncevic (Croatia), Ana María Cano González (Spain), Doreen Gerritzen (the Netherlands), Milan Harvalík (Czech Republic), Alda Rossebastiano (Italy). The next congress will be organized by the University of Pisa, Italy, and will be held from August 29 through September 3, 2005.

The New ICOS Board met in Regensburg, Germany, in March 2003 where it was announced that Doreen Gerritzen had accepted the nomination by the previous Board to be the new Editor-in-Chief for Onoma.  In addition, members of the Editorial Board for Onoma were elected: Pierre-Henri Billy, Ana María Cano Gonzáles, Richard Coates (Chair), Albrecht Greule, Milan Harvalík, Grant Smith and Mats Wahlberg.  A special ICOS Bibliography Group was set up with the aim to create an international onomastic bibliography for the Internet.  The Bibliography Group consists of Doreen Gerritzen (chair), Dunja Brozovic-Roncevic, Milan Harvalík, Karina van Dalen-Oskam and Richard Coates from the ICOS Board, and Katharina Leibring (SOFI, Sweden), Enzo CAFFARELLI (editor of RIOn, Italy) and Leendert Brouwer (Meertens Instituut, the Netherlands).  The group had its first meeting in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, in October 2003.  See also GASQUE, Smith.

 

Israel. See Demsky

 

Italian Surnames.  See CAFFARELLI

 

Jewish Names. See Demsky, KOENIG, Lawson, LIEBERSON.

 

Bob JULYAN says The New Mexico Geographic Names Committee, which he chairs, “has been in hibernation,” so his main activity lately has been to revitalize it. 

 

Kentucky.  See RENNICK.

 

Helen KERFOOT has continued during the past year as an Emeritus Scientist at Natural Resources Canada in Ottawa, and as a member of the Ontario Geographic Names Board.  Much of her time over the past months has been devoted to the work of Chair of the United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names (UNGEGN).  In June, she passed on the Presidency of the Canadian Society for the Study of Names (CSSN) to Wolfgang Ahrens (York University, Toronto), but assumed the role of Editor of the Society’s journal Onomastica Canadiana.  She “would, of course, be happy to hear from anyone interested in submitting an article to the journal.”  Please contact her at: hkerfoot@nrcan.gc.ca  

 

William J. KIRWIN of the English Department of Memorial University of Newfoundland published “Archbishop Howley and Placentia Bay.” Newfoundland Quarterly 96, 1 (2003): 11-14.  The work is a survey of Michael F. Howley’s toponymic writings of around 1910.  It discusses his researches in books and maps and collections from oral tradition in the region.  Professor Kirwin has also edited a newsletter on onomastic studies for Memorial University’s English Language Research Centre. 

Robert Hollett and Professor Kirwin have continued the study of Placentia Bay placenames, involving current oral reports and historical documentation.  Professor Kirwin also passes on to us that the name of the province has been changed from Newfoundland to Newfoundland and Labrador.    

 

James KOENIG has “over the past eighteen months” written five papers on aspects of Jewish given names and surnames.  These have been published in ZichronNote, the quarterly journal of the San Francisco Bay Area Jewish Genealogical Society.  He continues to do research on the naming practices of the non-Western world.  He also has written - but not submitted for publication – a manuscript on names and naming practices in Southeast and East Asia.  He adds, “if I ever get the material into suitable form, I will offer it for review and possible print.”

 

Edwin D. LAWSON has been “spending [his] time still editing those CIA papers.”  Dr. Lawson says that he has made “substantial progress but the
project is still a long way from completion let alone publication.”  He made a great contribution to ANS this year by planning and hosting a Boston conference held in conjunction with the Linguistic Society of America.   By all accounts the conference was a tremendous success!

Professor Lawson also published:

He also presented:  “The Mountain (Gorski) Jews of Azerbaijan: Their 20th Century Naming Patterns.”   (with Farid Alakbarov, Azerbaijan Academy of Sciences and Richard F. Sheil, State University of New York, College at Fredonia) at the Canadian Society for the Study of Names, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia,  in May 2003.

 

Jesse LEVITT, Professor Emeritus of Foreign Languages at the University of Bridgeport, was unable to attend the Names Institute during the period because of illness.  He has continued as First Vice President of the American Society of Geolinguistics (ASG).  At the September 2003 meeting of ASG he presented “Multilingualism in Switzerland, Belgium and Luxembourg” and in October he spoke on “French as an International Language.”   He published an obituary and eulogy for Allen Walker Read that appears in the journal Geolinguistics 2003.

          Professor Levitt plans to attend the October 2004 ASG conference and present his paper on “Mythology as a Source of Scientific and Learned Vocabulary.”

 

Zhonghua LI, a Professor at the Ocean University of China (Qingdao), in December 2002, published “A Dictionary of English Names,” through Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press.  A review of the dictionary by John Yu appeared in Names: A Journal of Onomastics in June 2003.

          Professor Li also attended the 21st Congress of the International Council of Onomastic Sciences at Uppsala, Sweden, where he presented his “Generation Names in China: To Be or Not to Be?"  His co-author on this work is Edwin D. LAWSON.  Another article on the subject, “Generation Names in China: Past, Present, and Future,” also co-authored with Professor Lawson, appeared in Names: A Journal of Onomastics in September 2003. 

 

Laura Chao-chih LIAO, Associate Professor at the National University of Kaohsiung, writes that most of her publications were in non-onomastic fields.

 

Stanley J. LIEBERSON wrote “Popularity as a Taste: An Application to the Naming Process” with Freda B. Lynn. (Forthcoming in Onoma.)  This paper was presented at the American Name Society sessions that were part of the Linguistic Society of America conference held in Boston in January of 2004.  Presentations of material for the paper were given in seminars at Rutgers University and University of Washington, Seattle, in spring 2003.  Dr. Lieberson also wrote “Jewish Names and The Names of Jews,” which appears in These Are The Names: Studies in Jewish Onomastics, Volume 4: 161-172 (Forthcoming).  Professor Lieberson also appeared on the NPR program “The Connection” in fall 2003 where he discussed names with Cleveland Kent EVANS.  In addition, Dr. Lieberson’s 2000 book, A Matter of Taste, was cited extensively in a 2003 New York Times Magazine article about first names.

 

Myra LINDEN has been very busy during the period.  She says that she and Arthur Whimbey “are passionate about fomenting an educational revolution, so we decided the way to do it is to produce course materials that improve students' reading, writing, and thinking skills.”  Their five book series, Prototype-Construction Approach to Grammar has been very successful.  You can read more about it at www.bgfperformance.com. 

They have also created the content for social studies software, particularly a series (two-levels) of biographies of African-Americans, Hispanic Americans, and Native Americans.  In addition they created a United States history “of the first half through the Civil War/Reconstruction.”  The latter earned them the “2003 InfoWorld 100 Award” for “an innovative and unique software-based instructional system to meet diversity objectives in business and education.”

 

Linguistic Society of America.  See LAWSON, LIEBERSON, ORTH, RAYBURN.

 

Literary Names. See DEVINNE, Edmund MILLER, Moraru, NICOLAISEN, PETIT, SMITH.

 

Dorothy LITT attended the ANS meeting held in conjunction with the Linguistic Society of America in Boston in January 2004.  She “sends greetings to all.”

 

Emma Woo LOUIE says that during her research on Chinese American names, she noticed that the Chinese names of the early Cantonese-speaking immigrants were being respelled into Mandarin pronunciation for articles and books on Chinese American history.  “The real name may appear in parenthesis or, in some cases, be eliminated.”  For example, Chin Gee Hee, a merchant who lived in Seattle from 1875 to 1905, was recently renamed “Chen Yixi.”  This is analogous to I.M. Pei’s name being respelled as Bei Yuming.  Even the Bok Kai Temple, founded in 1854 in Marysville, California, became “Pei-chi” Temple in a recent article on Chinese temples in the state.

Respelling names into Mandarin pronunciation “implies that it is the correct spelling.  This ignores the fact that people in this country have always been free to choose their names and however their names are spelled is considered the correct spelling. Respelling names into Mandarin skews community history because Cantonese was the dominant Chinese dialect in this country until recent decades and the current pinyin system was perfected during the late 1950s in the People’s Republic of China.”  A “Chen Yixi” would not have existed from 1875 to 1905, she says, nor would “Pei-chi Temple” be listed in any Marysville public records.

After expressing her concerns to the Chinese Historical Society of America, the editorial board for its journal, History&Perspectives, agreed, in April 2003, on a Chinese name spelling policy.  When writers submit articles that include Chinese names used in America, the original spelling will be used.  She also expressed her concerns in an article titled “Ramifications of Respelling Chinese Names.”  This appeared in the Asian American Comparative Collection Newsletter, Supplement Vol. 19, No. 3 (September 2002), a University of Idaho publication.

She adds, “any suggestions on how to reach a wider audience will be greatly appreciated.”

 

William LOY, we are greatly saddened to report, died November 15, 2003 at the age of 67 from cancer-related complications.  See also McArthur.

 

Mark MANDEL is the Research Administrator for a project at the University of Pennsylvania that is focused on extracting information from biomedical text (http://www.ldc.upenn.edu/myl/ITR/).  He writes that “much of the previous work that we are basing this effort on (e.g., http://www.ldc.upenn.edu/Projects/ACE/) has dealt with named entities such as are found in news articles, like President Bush, China, the Pentagon, and the American Name Society.” The texts they are now working with have very few proper nouns and a great many entities (“of interest to us”) of other types, such as Ki-ras (a gene, in the relevant ontology), rhabdomyosarcomas (a type of cancer, or malignancy), Asp816-->Tyr (a mutation, or variation, comprising an original state Asp, an altered state Tyr, and a location 816), and (2R)-anti-5-[3-[4-(10,11-difluoromethanodibenzo-suber-5-yl)piperazin-1-yl]-2-hydroxypropoxy]quinolinetrihydrochloride (a substance).  The conceptual differences between named entities in biomedical text and newswire are among the challenges he says that they face in applying and extending the methods of information extraction to this domain.

Dr. Mandel’s professional home page, which he says is much in need of updating, is http://www.cis.upenn.edu/~mamandel/index.html. His personal home page can be found at http://mark.CracksAndShards.com.

 

Lewis L. MCARTHUR and Cynthia Gardiner attended the COGNA Conference in Pacific Grove, California in October 2003.  He reports that, “Dwight Hughes of the U.S. Geological Survey gave a presentation on the National Map, a project that will eventually provide all the various layers of the 1/24000 USGS quadrangles up to date on line.”  Mr. McArthur presented a paper on the maintenance required for state and local administrative names.  This, he says, is “apparently is not a major concern to most State Names Authorities.”  Region 6 of the U.S. Forest Service in Oregon and Washington has an ongoing program to keep their facility data current and Region 5 in California is beginning a sample. 

The 7th edition of Oregon Geographic Names is “at the printers.”  The book will include a CDROM with maps of Oregon and a program that will visually locate many of the geographic names in the book along with a separate map and list of some 1600 historic post offices.  The CD also has a complete biographical index of 9600 names and a geographical index of 2500 features.  The Oregon Historical Society is the publisher.

The late William LOY, Stuart Allan, Jim Meacham and Eric Steiner put the second edition of the Atlas of Oregon on a CDROM.  As mentioned in the 2002 report, this is “a remarkable set of maps covering not only the topography but many of the aspects of social geography.”  Cartographic Perspectives, the journal of the North American Cartographic Information Society, had an informative review in its Fall 2002 issue.

          The U.S. Board on Geographic Names now has a requirement that “recognized Indian Tribal Councils must have an opportunity to comment on all new or changed natural feature names.”  The Oregon Geographic Names Board has created a procedure to comply with this requirement.  The board also continues to oversee the maintenance of the Oregon GNIS.  Lewis McArthur and Cynthia Gardner along with Mary McArthur continue to review the Oregon file and “most of the duplicates, errors and inconsistencies have been eliminated.”  Of the 51,000 records, two thirds are natural features whose names are controlled by the U.S. Board on Geographic Names through their usual rules.  One third, or 17,000 are administrative names controlled by various federal, state and local agencies.  He also reports that, “county parks in 11 out of 36 counties along with those of several major cities have been updated and entered in the GNIS.”  The procedure was successful so “we are now working the most complex area,

Metropolitan Portland.”

 

Michael MCCAFFERTY published two articles in 2003: “A Fresh Look at the Place Name Chicago” in the Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society. (Vol. 96, no. 2., 2003: 116-29) and “On the Birthday and Etymology of the Place Name Missouri” in Names: A Journal of Onomastics.  (51.2., June 2003: 31-45).

          He also researched and provided the data for an interactive digital map of Indiana on permanent display at the Eiteljorg Museum of the American Indian and Western Art in Indianapolis.  What is actually a series of overlapping maps covering the early, middle and late historical periods presents locally created historic Native American placenames, historic trail and village locations and a new view of the Great Buffalo Trace that linked Big Bone Lick and the Falls of the Ohio to Vincennes and the Illinois prairies.  One aspect of these maps is that the visitor, using a computer mouse, can click on any of the nearly one hundred Native placenames, which appear on the map in phonemic transcription; in order hear their pronunciations.

          Professor McCafferty also “continued to update and polish” his book-length manuscript Native Place Names of Indiana, an ethno-historical and linguistic study of names created by historic, American Indians who lived in what is now Indiana.

          In addition, he served Ed Callary as an Algonquian language consultant on analyzing a huge number of Native and Native-derived placenames in Illinois.

          Finally, Dr. McCafferty wrote four articles, two of which are forthcoming: “On Wisconsin: the Derivation and Referent of an Old Puzzle in American Placenames” (for Onoma, Thomas GASQUE, ed.) and “On a Recent Approach to Jean Nicollet and the Winnebago” (for Ontario History).  The other two articles, which analyze Jacques Marquette’s name for the Ohio River, <8AB8SKIG8> and the Miami-Illinois language placename “Kankakee,” will also, “hopefully,” appear in print this year.

 

Michael F. McGOFF, editor of The Ehrensperger Report and Vice Provost at Binghamton University (SUNY), has again focused most of his energies on his position at the University during this period.  His duties as Treasurer of ANS also required frequent attention.  He did, however, take time to update the ANS web pages that detail biographies of name scholars who promoted the study of onomastics in North America.  It can be seen at: Who Was Who in North American Name Study.

He also updated the websites of the American Name Society and its Toponymy Interest Group (formerly PLANSUS) which may be viewed at: http://www.wtsn.binghamton.edu/plansus/ while the official website of ANS may be viewed at: http://www.wtsn.binghamton.edu/ANS.

Dr. McGoff reports that the ANS listserve, which is also resident on the State University of New York at Binghamton computer system, now has over 200 members.  The listserve is an active forum for the discussion of onomastic issues.  Those interested in this Onomastic Discussion Group may join by sending a simple command on e-mail to: listserv@listserv.binghamton.edu.  No “subject” is necessary, and the message must contain only one line: sub ans-l yourfirstname yourlastname.  A recent topic of discussion on the listserve has been on the use and pronunciation of American placenames of Native American origin.

 

Erin MCKEAN, is the Editor of Verbatim.  Queries about the serial may be sent to editor@verbatimmag.com.

 

Edmund MILLER, Department of English, C.W. Post campus of Long Island University, presented a paper “Indexing Names for a Genealogy” at the Forty-First Anniversary meeting of the Names Institute in May 2002 in New York City.  It has been submitted to Names: A Journal of Onomastics where it is under consideration for publication.  In the piece he discusses the fact that the indexing of a genealogy is “for the most part an exercise in alphabetizing names.”  But, he says, “decisions have to be made about what sort of indexes to include, and special problems emerge about the arrangement of the names.”  Because names typically appear in a different order in the text of a book and an alphabetic list, computerized indexing is not well adapted to automatic selection of texts heavily loaded with names infrequently repeated, but word processing programs can be adapted to the special needs of such name indexes by making master name lists.  Beyond this, decisions have to be made about how many variant forms of a name to alphabetize and how to distinguish individuals with the same name, a particularly likely occurrence in a genealogy.  Genealogies that include historical personages require a policy about translation variants, placenames in the titles of sovereigns, geographical extensions of titles of nobility, and posthumous designations awarded to saints.  Persons from the period before hereditary surnames require a policy about alphabetization, particularly if patronymics are in use.  Medieval Welsh women with patronymics but without given names present a particular difficulty.  Illustrations of typical problems are drawn from his book George Herbert’s Kinships, and the various solutions adopted are described.

          He also made a presentation about “The New Film Version of the Oscar Wilde play The Importance of Being Earnest” at the Squire Theater in Great Neck, New York in May 2002.  He adds that the presentation “is an outgrowth of his work on the Oscar Wilde play, also represented by the publication of ‘Renaming Algernon,’” ed. Robert N. Keene and Robert B. Sargent in Oscar Wilde: The Man, His Writings, and His World (Westport: Greenwood, 2003).   “Renaming Algernon” notes that in The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde both Gwendolyn and Cecily are engaged to men masquerading under the name Ernest, a name that “inspires absolute confidence” (I. 1673; II.1691).  Jack's original name is discovered to be Ernest, but Algernon’s is not.  He argues that the plot might have effected the change.  Algernon might have had additional given names.  Cecily might learn to live with disappointment.  Algernon might have gone through with a renaming.  Or Cecily might agree to use Ernest as a private pet name for Algernon.  But any such plot devices resolving the problem would have given the play symmetry but diminished its satire.  An abstract of “Renaming Algernon” appeared in Lesbian and Gay Studies Newsletter 27.1-2 (2000): 19.

          His article “Juno Descends: Ambiguous Sexuality and the Staging of The Tempest,” presented at a recent conference at Hofstra University is forthcoming in Millennial Shakespeare: Performance/Text/Scholarship, ed. Iska Alter and Royston Coppenger (Westport: Greenwood, 2002). 

 

Mary Rita Miller focused during the period on literature.  She promises to return to onomastics before the next report.

 

Christian MORARU is an Associate Editor of symploke, His website is: http://www.uncg.edu/~c_moraru/.

 

Michael Dean MURPHY is Professor of Anthropology at the University of Alabama, his website can be accessed at: http://www.as.ua.edu/ant/murphy.htm.

 

Names Institute. See BARRY, Finke, Levitt, Edmund MILLER.

 

Names: A Journal of Onomastics.  See VASILIEV.

 

National Geographic Names Data Compilation Program.  See PAYNE

 

National Map.  See MCARTHUR, PAYNE

 

Native American Placenames of the United States (NAPUS).  See Bright

 

New Mexico.  See JulYan

 

Newfoundland and Labrador.  See Kirwin

 

W.F.H. NICOLAISEN, Distinguished Professor Emeritus of English and Folklore at the State University of New York at Binghamton and currently Honorary Professor of English in the School of Language and Literature at the University of Aberdeen (Scotland), begins his report with the exciting news that he has become the first recipient of the American Folklore Society's (AFS) Lifetime Scholarly Achievement Award, the Society's highest award.  The award ceremony took place in October 2002, as part of the AFS Annual Conference in Rochester, New York.

          During the report period, Professor Nicolaisen was also involved in the following events:

In addition to seven reviews and ten monthly articles on name studies in the regional magazine Leopard, Professor Nicolaisen published the following articles:

Professor Nicolaisen completed his third year as President of the Scottish Society for Northern Studies but still serves as Vice-President of the Folklore Society.  He continues to serve on the committees and councils of several learned societies and on a number of editorial boards.

 

Alleen NILSEN, Professor of English at the University of Arizona, says that she and Don NILSEN published two textbooks with Pearson/Allyn & Bacon.  They are Vocabulary Plus K-8: A Source-Based Approach and Vocabulary Plus High School and Up: A Source-Based Approach.  Both books have “lots of information about common names, but the K-8 book is more specific in having a whole chapter on mythology and names as well as eponyms from people and from places.”  Professor Nilsen adds, “while the research is not entirely new, it does a service by introducing a new generation to onomastics.”  Information about the books can be found at www.ablongman.com/nilsen.  Professor Nilsen’s website can be found at: http://www.public.asu.edu/~apnilsen

 

Don NILSEN.  See Alleen NILSEN.

 

Nomina Africana - Journal of the Names Society of Southern Africa (NSA).

 

Onoma is the journal of the International Council of Onomastic Sciences. 

See GASQUE; SMITH

 

Onomastica Canadiana, the journal of the Canadian Society for the Study of Names.  See KERFOOT.

 

Oregon. See McArthur.

 

Orkney placenames.  See NICOLAISEN.

 

Donald J. ORTH has completed his first year in his role as secretary of the American Name Society.  During this period he worked with the United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names (UNGEGN), headed by Helen KERFOOT, on a revision of his 1990 Manual for the National Standardization of Geographical Names.

For several years Mr. Orth has been interested in seeing what can be done about “elevating placename study into a scholarly discipline.”  To this end, he presented a paper three years ago at the Canadian Society for the Study of Names dealing with possible naming conditions that may form a basis for the development of a placename theory.  This was followed in subsequent years by roundtable discussions on “what is meant by placename meaning and placename origin.”  He plans to write a paper this year dealing with these and other issues.  He hopes that it is possible to organize a two or three-day forum and invite those of us interested in the subject.  He attended the ANS annual meeting in San Diego as well as the ANS meeting held in conjunction with the Linguistic Society of America, in Boston in January 2004.

 

Outer Banks Placenames. See PAYNE.

 

Pan American Institute of Geography and History (PAIGH).  See Payne

 

Anastasia PARIANOU, an assistant professor at the Ionian University in Greece, writes that during this period she published:  “Cultural Barriers: Possibilities and Restrictions in Interpreting” in: Zybatow, Lew N. (ed.): Translation zwischen Theorie und Praxis. Innsbrucker Ringvorlesungen zur Translationswissenschaft I. Frankfurt, Berlin, Bern, Bruxelles, New York, Oxford, Wien:Lang.

She also presented at conferences:  “Instructions for Use and their Translation in a Global Age” at the 14th European Symposium on Language for Special Purposes: Communication, Culture, Knowledge (August 2003) at the University of Surrey (UK);  “Gebrauchsanweisungen und ihre kulturellen Elemente - unter besonderer Beruecksichtigung des Sprachenpaares Deutsch-Griechisch" [in German] (Instructions for Use and their Cultural Elements - with Special Consideration of the Language Pair German-Greek) at the 10th International Conference on Translation and Interpreting, Institute of Translation Studies, Charles University, Prague: Translation Targets (September 2003).

In June 2003 she became “Node for Greece for the CIRIN-Bulletin (Conference Interpreting Research Information Network), an independent network for the dissemination of information on conference interpreting research (CIR), Editor: Daniel Gile.”

Her research interests center on:  Translation Studies, Phraseology, and LSP.
She is currently working on an article on translating names.

 

Roger L. PAYNE, Executive Secretary of the Board on Geographic Names of the U.S. Geological Survey reports that revision of Place Names of the Outer Banks is in progress, and is a high priority since supplies are now depleted and requests for a revision have been received.  During this period, Mr. Payne completed an analysis and recommendation for a proposal for a toponymic book to be published by the University of Chicago Press.  He also provided three book reviews (not toponymic) in three different children's series on Earth Science and Geography.

In June and July 2003, he organized and served as principal instructor for the 15th course in applied toponymy offered by the Pan American Institute of Geography and History (PAIGH), and held in Quito, Ecuador.  There were 22 students, and this offering of the course included an expanded section on toponymic training using the Internet along with training in the spatial aspects of toponymy.  Thus far, almost 350 students have participated in the courses where they receive lectures in various methods and procedures for standardizing geographic names as well as participating in a field exercise for collecting data, and an automation workshop.

Mr. Payne, along with U.S. Board on Geographic Names (BGN) staff at United States Geological Survey (USGS), attended and participated in the annual conference of the Council of Geographic Names Authorities (COGNA) 2003 in Pacific Grove, California.  Much of the year has been spent in revising the Domestic Names Committee: Principles, Policies, and Procedures (PPP).  The BGN/DNC staff was responsible for developing the agenda of the State/Federal Roundtable session (most of one day), and where discussion of changes of major impact of the PPP occupied most of the agenda.  Also, at this year's conference the Secretary of the BGN's Advisory Committee on Undersea Features participated and presented a paper regarding that committee's policies and procedures.

He also represented the U.S. Board on Geographic Names at the Annual Meeting of the Geographical Names Board of Canada.

The National Geographic Names Data Compilation Program continued to suffer in 2003, as funding was not available for the year.  It is hoped that 2004 will again be on track for completing this 30-year geographic names compilation program with only the States of Alaska, Kentucky, New York, and Michigan remaining to be authorized. The focus of the Geographical Names Information Systems activity was concentrated on implementing a completely redesigned version of GNIS scheduled to be available in early 2004.  Also, a new look and homepage was made available for GNIS and BGN at http://geonames.usgs.gov.  The new GNIS is designed with a spatial component, and in addition to the support provided to the overall user community now has specific aspects in support of the National Map, which is “the digital version of the U.S. Geological Survey's topographic maps and much more.”  Much of the GNIS staff's work has been to establish the mechanism whereby locally provided names will be processed quickly and with appropriate quality assurance, and then served from GNIS through its own map service directly to the National Map.

 

Personal Names. See BARRY, Caffarelli, GALBI, HANKS, Tucker.

 

Susan PETIT has an interest in onomastics but reports that her scholarly activity is almost entirely in contemporary French literature.  During this period she published: 

Articles:

Reviews:

She adds that “the only one of these works concerning names is the article on Hardy.”

 

Ingrid PILLER is a Professor of Linguistics at the University of Sydney.  Professor Piller’s website is: http://www.arts.usyd.edu.au/~ingpille/index.html.

 

Placename Theory.  See ORTH.

 

PLANSUS (Placename Survey of the United States).  Now called: Toponymy Interest Group of the American Name Society.

 

Barry POPIK says that his work for this period can be found in Comments on Etymology (See COHEN) and daily on the American Dialect Society web site, www.americandialect.org, [see archives].  He adds, “New computer databases have greatly improved the work.”  During this period he traveled to “Croatia, Slovenia, Germany, Kenya, Tanzania, Sri Lanka, Trinidad, Guyana, French Guiana, Suriname, and more” recording food and drink terms.  The Oxford Encyclopedia of American Food and Drink, for which he is an editor, will be available in 2004.  Food and drink terms he has researched include the “Shirley Temple cocktail,” “dulce de leche,” and many more.

“Important progress has been made,” he says, on American city and state nicknames such as “the Windy City” (now dated to 1876) and “I'm from Missouri-Show Me” (now dated to 1897).

 

Margaret S. POWELL responds that research is again progressing on the new edition of the placename bibliography covering the published literature on geographic names in the United States and Canada.  She asks that readers "please continue to call [her] attention to relevant scholarship" by contacting her at her permanent residence in Ohio (314 Reed Road, Wooster, OH 44691-2138), or by e-mail (mpowell@wooster.edu).     

 

Richard R. RANDALL is Executive Secretary Emeritus of the U.S. Board on Geographic Names.   He writes that in October 2002 he gave a summary of his book Place Names: How They Define the World – and More for a book-signing event at Reiters Book Store in Washington, D.C.  During 2003, he worked with Randall Detro to prepare an introduction to part of a book he is compiling on the work of Meredith ‘Pete’ Burrill.  Dr. Randall also helped Mrs. Betty Burrill, Pete’s widow, to dispose of the voluminous papers Pete collected to assure they would be housed in an appropriate place.  He was also assigned to serve with a newly formed committee of the Association of American Geographers to judge papers that may qualify for a Burrill Award the AAG would grant. 

In response to a request from Helen KERFOOT, Chair of the United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names, he provided materials from his personal files concerning past UNGEGN actions regarding undersea feature names (for which he was largely responsible during the 1980s) as they might relate to similar efforts of the International Hydrographic Bureau.  It is worth noting that the Advisory Committee on Undersea Features of the United States Board on Geographic Names approved the name, Randall Seamount Group, which is located in the Pacific, south of Hawaii.  The action was to honor the contributions made by Dr. Randall’s father and his two older brothers in the area of Federal marine cartography from approximately 1941 to 1973.  The action also cited his own work as Executive Secretary of the Board from 1973-1993 which included considerable attention to principles, policies, and procedures of naming undersea features as related not only to United States requirements but also to programs of the United Nations and the International Hydrographic Bureau. 

While Dr. Randall is not presently “involved in toponymic studies or research,” he is “busy with numerous programs, including serving as the chair of the Education Committee of the Explorers Club (Washington Group).  The goal is to provide middle-school students with personal accounts of exploration carried out by members.”

 

Alan RAYBURN reports that the homepage for biographies of deceased specialists in North American name study (www.wtsn.binghamton.edu/onoma) remains active.  By April 2004 there were over 6,080 hits on the website since it was first posted in August 2001.   The biographies of William Read and Philip Akrigg are the latest additions to the website.

Mr. Rayburn attended the annual meeting of the Canadian Society for the Study of Names for 2003, held at Dalhousie University in Halifax, from May 29 to June 1.  He delivered a paper entitled “Respecting Historical Names on Modern Replications of Historical Maps and of Historical References to Places.”  In his presentation he pointed out that many maps and publications representing historical periods use the modern names as references.  He concluded, “the names used during the historical periods covered should be respected.”

Mr. Rayburn published a review of A Place of Honour: Manitoba's War Dead Commemorated in its Geography. Winnipeg: Manitoba Conservation, Manitoba Geographical Names Program, 2003. vi, 485 pages; Lieux de mémoire: Des lieux du Manitoba perpétuent des soldats morts à la guerre. Winnipeg: Conservation Manitoba, Programme des noms géographiques du Manitoba, 2003. viii, 525 pages. ($19.95 for each of them.)  His review appeared in Onomastica Canadiana, December 2003.

Mr. Rayburn attended the annual meeting of the American Name Society held in San Diego in December 2003; and the ANS sessions at the Linguistic Society of America in Boston, January 2004.

 

Alan Walker Read. See LEVITT.

 

Dean REILEIN, a retired librarian from Eastern Connecticut State University, has no activity to report for this period.

 

Robert M. RENNICK has, since his last Ehrensperger contribution, maintained his interest in Kentucky placenames and specifically Kentucky post offices and their names.  A book on the post offices of Kentucky's Upper Big Sandy Valley was published in the fall of 2002 and featured with several others of his placenames books at the annual Kentucky Book Fair in Frankfort.  His latest book, on the post offices of the Northern Kentucky (the ten counties in the Greater Cincinnati area) was published in late 2003.  In addition, individual county studies are being published on a fairly regular basis in La Posta, the Journal of Postal History.  Four more Kentucky post office books are in press and one more is in current preparation.  Other articles on Kentucky history, placenames, and folklore have been published in Kentucky Humanities and The Millstone (a publication of the Kentucky Old Mill Association).

As chair of the Kentucky Geographic Names Committee, Mr. Rennick attended and presented a paper at the Baltimore session of COGNA in 2002 and, with his committee, is still waiting for the opportunity to bid for Kentucky's Phase 2 contract from the U.S. Board on Geographic Names.  In the meantime he and his committee continue to add to the state's own data base as they have done since the early 1960s after the publication of the state's first official gazetteer by Thomas Field. 

Mr. Rennick adds that, “since he can no longer drive at night,” he has had to severely curtail his presentations to professional historical and similar groups throughout the state.”  He did, however, give a presentation to Kentucky's Old Mill Association with whom he has agreed to share his data on Kentucky mill names and names derived from associations with the several thousand known named Kentucky mills (e.g. Kentucky has well over 800 streams named Mill (something).  Most of these have been researched and documented.

Mr. Rennick also continues to develop theoretical and methodological guidelines for placename study and will offer assistance on these to anyone upon request.  In his spare time, he serves as a consultant to several programs for his local state college.

 

Rivista Italiana di Onomastica-RIOn.  See CAFFARELLI

 

Jennifer RUNYON continues to be a Senior Researcher in the Geographic Names Office at the U.S. Geological Survey in Reston, Virginia.  She is especially involved in the actions of the Domestic Names Committee of the U.S. Board on Geographic Names (BGN), as well as answering toponymic inquiries from Federal, State, and local agencies and the general public.  Ms. Runyon serves on the Executive Council of the American Name Society.

 

Scandinavian Onomastics.  See Fellows-Jensen, Språk och folkminnesinstitutet.

 

Scotland, names of.  See NICOLAISEN.

 

Slang.  See Cohen, Popik

 

Ralph SLOVENKO published “Tragicomedy in Trials and Appellate Opinions,” in the Journal of Psychiatry and Law (JPL) (30. 2002: 299); “The Pervasiveness of Sex and Excretory Language/A Lexicon,” in JPL (29. 2001: 201); and “The Role of Psychiatric Diagnosis in the Law,” in JPL (30. 2002: 421).

          Professor Slovenko also attended the annual meeting of the American Name Society in San Diego in December 2003.

 

Grant SMITH, Professor at Eastern Washington University, presented:

      Professor Smith is also Chair of the Toponymy Interest Group of the American Name Society; a member of the Washington State Board of Geographic Names (State Department of Natural Resources); Vice President of the International Council of Onomastic Sciences; and Chair of Local Arrangements for the annual meeting of the American Name Society.  He is also a member of the editorial board for the journal Onoma and Co-guest Editor, with Friedhelm Debus of Onoma 40 (2005), “Literary Onomastics.”

     

Dr. Smith is an active member of:

·       American Association of University Professors

·       American Dialect Society 

·       Archaeological Institute of America

·       American Society of Geolinguistics

·       American Name Society

·       Canadian Society for the Study of Names

·       International Council for Onomastic Sciences

·       Linguistic Society of America

·       Modern Language Association

·       Societé Internationale de Dialectologie et Geolinguistique

·       United Faculty of Eastern Washington University

 

Elizabeth SPHAR who turned 95 on October 20th is “reading and relaxing.”  She “no longer writes.”

 

Språk och folkminnesinstitutet (SOFI), Uppsala, Sweden.  On behalf of the International Council of Onomastic Sciences (ICOS), the 21st International Congress of Onomastic Sciences was organized at Uppsala, Sweden, August 19–24 2002 by Språk och folkminnesinstitutet (SOFI) (Institute for Dialectology, Onomastics and Folklore Research) in co-operation with Uppsala University and the Royal Gustavus Adolphus Academy for Swedish Folk Culture. The congress proceedings will be published by SOFI.

In June 2003 Svenskt ortnamnslexikon (Swedish Place-Name Dictionary), edited by Mats Wahlberg, was published by SOFI.  This first lexicon of its kind is the result of a cooperative project between SOFI and the Department of Scandinavian languages at Uppsala University. It is intended for the general reader and contains brief etymologies for approximately 6,000 placenames in Sweden (including Finnish and Saami placenames), written by scholars from the two institutions.

 

Standardization of Geographical Names.  See KERFOOT, PAYNE

 

Surnames.  See Personal Names.

 

Swedish placenames.  See Språk och folkminnesinstitutet.

 

Theory of Names.  See ORTH, SMITH, VAN LANGENDONCK.

 

Toponymy, Asia-Pacific Institute for.  See Flavia HODGES

 

Toponymy, spatial aspects of.  See PAYNE.

 

Toponymy Interest Group.  See SMITH.

 

Translation of names.  See PARIANOU.

 

Ken TUCKER completed his work with Patrick HANKS to produce cultural, ethnic, language (CEL) group predictors for surnames and forenames in Hanks' Dictionary of American Family Names (DAFN) published in March 2003.  He also contributed to DAFN the essay “Surnames, Forenames, and Correlations: Some Facts and Figures.”  He completed the paper “A New Approach to Personal Names Dictionaries - The Proposed Canadian Forenames & Surnames Dictionary,” which will be published as part of the Proceedings of the International Council of Onomastic Sciences (ICOS) 2002 Congress in Uppsala, Sweden. He also analyzed the 26-million surname-forename records from the U.K. 1881 Census as transcribed by the Church of the Latter Day Saints and made available by the U.K. Data Archive.  A paper describing the results of the analysis is with Onoma for review.  He published a review of Adrian Room's “The Penguin Dictionary of British Place Names” in Names: A Journal of Onomastics 51.2 June 2003.  He is at work analyzing the U.K. 2000 Electoral Roll of 47 million forename-surname records and comparing the results with the U.K. 1881 Census Results.

 

United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names (UNGEGN).  The next meeting of UNGEGN will be held in New York in April 2004.  The 9th United Nations Conference on the Standardization of Geographical Names is planned for 2007.  For more information, see the UNGEGN web site: http://unstats.un.org/unsd/geoinfo.

The 9th Conference is planned for 2007.  For more information, see the UNGEGN website: http://unstats.un.org/unsd/geoinfo.  See also Kerfoot.

 

U.S. Board on Geographic Names (BGN). See MCARTHUR, PAYNE, RANDALL, RUNYON, YOST

 

Willy VAN LANGENDONCK, Professor in the Department of Linguistics at the Instituut voor Naamkunde & Dialectologie, University of Leuven, Belgium, reports the following:

Two books,

·       Theory and Typology of Proper Names. Berlin: Mouton. To appear [ca. 300 p.].

(with Magda Devos, Doreen Gerritzen and Ann Marynissen).

Three articles, a review and an In Memoriam,

·     “Bynames Within the Personal Name System.”  In: A World of Names I.  Essays in honour of Dr Peter Raper, ed. By L.A. Möller and J.U. Jacobs. Special issue of Nomina Africana 14, 2001 [2003], 203-211.

·     “A Pragmatic Approach to Bynames.”  In: Festschrift for Johanna Kolléca. Onomata. Revue Onomastique (Athens) 16, 2001 [2002], 473-481.

·     “Semantic Considerations in Recent Onomastic Research: a Survey.”  To appear in: History of the Language Sciences. An International Handbook on the Evolution of the Study of Languages from the Beginnings to the Present (Handbooks of Linguistics and Communication Science). Ed. by S. Auroux, K. Koerner, H.-J. Niederehe & K. Versteegh. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 2004.

·     “Taalfilosofie en linguïstiek als complementaire benaderingen van taal.” Review article of: W.A. de Pater & P. Swiggers, Taal en teken. Een historisch-systematische inleiding in de taalfilosofie. (Wijsgerige Verkenningen 21). Leuven: Universitaire Pers; Assen: Van Gorcum, 2000. Leuvense Bijdragen 2004.

·     “In memoriam Robert Van Passen (1923-2002).” Handelingen van de Koninklijke Commissie voor Toponymie & Dialectologie 75, 2003, 29-34; Naamkunde 34, 2002, 1-3.

Other publications, not related to onomastics, which Professor Van Langendonck produced during the period are:

·     “De nominale constituent in het Nederlands en het Frans. Een contra      stieve analyse.” [The noun phrase in Dutch and French]. To appear in a contrastive Dutch-French volume. ca. 35 p.

·     “Iconicity.” To appear as Part 1. Basic Concepts: Chapter 14. In: Handbook of Cognitive Linguistics.  Ed. by D. Geeraerts & H. Cuyckens. Oxford University Press.

·      “The Dependency Concept and its Foundations.” To appear in: Dependency and Valency. An International Handbook of Contemporary Research (Handbooks of Linguistics and Communication Science). Ed. by V. Agel, L.M. Eichinger, H.-W. Eroms, P. Hellwig, H.J. Heringer and H. Lobin. Berlin: de Gruyter.  (See also ICOS).

 

Ren VASILIEV, Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Geography at State University of New York College at Geneseo, has just finished her first year as Editor of NAMES: A Journal of Onomastics, published by the American Name Society. 

 

Verbatim – The Language Quarterly. See Erin MCKEAN

 

Vikings in the British Isles.  See FELLOWS-JENSEN

 

Mats WAHLBERG.  See Språk och folkminnesinstitutet (SOFI).  

 

Washington State.  See SMITH

 

Who Was Who in North American Name Study.  See MCGOFF; RAYBURN.

 

Masayoshi YAMADA, Trustee and Professor of Linguistics at the University of Shimane, Japan, is the author of An English-Japanese Trade Names Dictionary (Kenkyusha Pub. Co., Tokyo. 1990. Pp. 552).  His is the first and the only dictionary in Japan in the field of proper names study.  Professor Yamada is the only scholar and authority in the field in Japan.  His publications for this period include:

     (Includes many trade names, personal names, and jargon related to names). Many of these names are difficult, he indicates, for non-native speakers of English to understand – both their meaning and their cultural backgrounds. Among those he addresses are Comfort, General Hospital (the TV Program), Mayor One, and Xanax.

     

Lou YOST is Deputy Chief of the Geographic Names Office that provides staff support to the U.S. Board on Geographic Names.  He also serves as the Secretary of the Advisory Committee on Antarctic Names (ACAN) of the U.S. Board on Geographic Names.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Addresses and telephone numbers are available for many of the above respondents to the Ehrensperger Report.  Members in good standing of the American Name Society may receive the list by sending an email to:

 

Dr. Michael F. McGoff, Vice Provost

State University of New York at Binghamton

Binghamton, New York 13902-6000

mmcgoff@binghamton.edu