Onomastics

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Onomastics (or onomatology in older texts) is the study of proper names, including their etymology, history, and use.

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An alethonym ('true name') or an orthonym ('real name') is the proper name of the object in question, the object of onomastic study. Scholars studying onomastics are called onomasticians.

Onomastics has applications in data mining, with applications such as named-entity recognition, or recognition of the origin of names. [1] [2] It is a popular approach in historical research, where it can be used to identify ethnic minorities within populations [3] [4] and for the purpose of prosopography.

Etymology

Onomastics originates from the Greek onomastikós (ὀνομαστικός, 'of or belonging to naming'), [5] [6] itself derived from ónoma (ὄνομα, 'name'). [7]

Branches

See also

Organizations

Related Research Articles

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<i>Polis</i> Ancient Greek social and political organisation

Polis, plural poleis, means ‘city’ in ancient Greek. The modern Greek word πόλη (polē) is a direct descendant of the ancient word and roughly means "city" or an urban place. However, the Ancient Greek term that specifically meant the totality of urban buildings and spaces was asty (ἄστυ), rather than polis.

Toponymy, toponymics, or toponomastics is the study of toponyms, including their origins, meanings, usage and types. Toponym is the general term for a proper name of any geographical feature, and full scope of the term also includes proper names of all cosmographical features.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Clerk</span> White-collar worker who conducts general office tasks

A clerk is a white-collar worker who conducts record keeping as well as general office tasks, or a worker who performs similar sales-related tasks in a retail environment. The responsibilities of clerical workers commonly include record keeping, filing, staffing service counters, screening callers, and other administrative tasks. In City of London livery companies, the clerk is the chief executive officer.

Anthroponymy is the study of anthroponyms, the proper names of human beings, both individual and collective. Anthroponymy is a branch of onomastics.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alcyone (Pleiad)</span> One of the Pleiades sisters, daughters of Atlas from Greek mythology

Alcyone, in Greek mythology, was the name of one of the Pleiades, daughters of Atlas and Pleione or, more rarely, Aethra. She attracted the attention of the god Poseidon and bore him several children, variously named in the sources: Hyrieus, Hyperenor, and Aethusa; Hyperes and Anthas; and Epopeus. By a mortal, Anthedon, Alcyone became the mother of the fisherman Glaucus, who was later transformed into a marine god.

Metaphorand metonymy are two fundamental opposite poles along which a discourse with human language is developed. It has been argued that the two poles of similarity and contiguity are fundamental ones along which the human mind is structured; in the study of human language the two poles have been called metaphor and metonymy, while in the study of the unconscious they have been called condensation and displacement. In linguistics, they are connected to the paradigmatic and syntagmatic poles.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Scottish toponymy</span>

Scottish toponymy derives from the languages of Scotland. The toponymy varies in each region, reflecting the linguistic history of each part of the country.

Constantine Sandis is a Greek and British philosopher and entrepreneur. Having worked on philosophy of action, moral psychology, David Hume, and Ludwig Wittgenstein, in 2013 he became Professor of Philosophy at Oxford Brookes University. He is currently Visiting Professor of Philosophy at the University of Hertfordshire, a Founding Director of author services firm Lex Academic and Chief Operations Officer of lexacademic.science.

A theonym is a proper name of a deity.

Elaine Matthews BA BPhil was a British classical scholar at the University of Oxford and one of the principal contributors to the Lexicon of Greek Personal Names.

Choronym is a linguistic term that designates a proper name of an individual region or a country. The study of regional and country names is known as choronymy, or choronymics. Since choronyms are a subclass of toponyms, choronymic studies represent a distinctive subfield of toponymic studies and belong to the wider field of onomastic studies.

Socio-onomastics is the study of names through a sociolinguistic lens, and is part of the broader topic of onomastics. Socio-onomastics 'examines the use and variety of names through methods that demonstrate the social, cultural, and situational conditions in name usage'. As a discipline, it aims to explore 'the social origin and use of different variants of proper names within various situations and contexts', including both place names and personal names.

<i>Place Names</i> 2023 book by Francesco Perono Cacciafoco and Francesco Paolo Cavallaro

Place Names: Approaches and Perspectives in Toponymy and Toponomastics is a book by linguists and authors Francesco Perono Cacciafoco and Francesco Paolo Cavallaro. The book explores toponymy and toponomastics. Through associating these studies with various disciplines and elucidating key methodologies with illustrative case studies, the volume provides an introduction to the origins, structures, and significance of place names worldwide. It was published in March 2023 by Cambridge University Press.

References

  1. Carsenat, Elian (2013). "Onomastics and Big Data Mining". arXiv: 1310.6311 [cs.CY].
  2. Mitzlaff, Folke; Stumme, Gerd (2013). "Onomastics 2.0 - The Power of Social Co-Occurrences". arXiv: 1303.0484 [cs.IR].
  3. Crymble, Adam (2017-02-09). "How Criminal were the Irish? Bias in the Detection of London Currency Crime, 1797-1821". The London Journal. 43: 36–52. doi: 10.1080/03058034.2016.1270876 . hdl: 2299/19710 .
  4. Crymble, Adam (2015-07-26). "A Comparative Approach to Identifying the Irish in Long Eighteenth-Century London" (PDF). Historical Methods. 48 (3): 141–152. doi:10.1080/01615440.2015.1007194. hdl: 2299/16184 . S2CID   161595975. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2020-03-14. Retrieved 2017-08-27.
  5. ὀνομαστικός Archived 2020-08-05 at the Wayback Machine , Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, on Perseus project
  6. "Online Etymology Dictionary". etymonline.com. Archived from the original on 27 August 2017. Retrieved 26 July 2015.
  7. ὄνομα Archived 2021-02-25 at the Wayback Machine , Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, on Perseus project
  8. Cacciafoco, Francesco Perono; Cavallaro, Francesco (2023). Place Names: Approaches and Perspectives in Toponymy and Toponomastics.
  9. Bruck, Gabriele (2009). The Anthropology of Names and Naming.
  10. Alvarez-Altman, Grace; Burelbach, Frederick M. (1987). Names in Literature: Essays from Literary Onomastics Studies.
  11. Ainiala, Terhi; Östman, Jan-Ola (2017). Socio-onomastics:The pragmatics of names.