For more than a decade, the American Name Society has singled out an outstanding article to be gi... more For more than a decade, the American Name Society has singled out an outstanding article to be given the Best Article of the Year Award. To select the publication to receive this prestigious honor, each member of the Editorial Board independently reviewed all of the articles that had been published in 2022. As per ANS tradition, obituaries, notes, editorials, book reviews, and articles contributed by the Editor-in-Chief were excluded from consideration. To make their decision, Board Members were asked to select the publications which they felt possessed the highest degree of creativity; demonstrated the best writing style; employed the soundest research methodology; and had the greatest potential to make a lasting and significant contribution to onomastics. Then, in a secret ballot, the Board members cast their votes. This report details the results of that selection process and reveals the 2022 winner of the ANS Best Article of the Year award.
This special distinction is given to a new scholar whose work is judged by a panel of onomastic r... more This special distinction is given to a new scholar whose work is judged by a panel of onomastic researchers to be of superior academic quality.
The ubiquitous image of the sprawling 19th century Southern plantation has meant that much of the... more The ubiquitous image of the sprawling 19th century Southern plantation has meant that much of the research on US slave names has focused on regions below the mid-Atlantic (Desrochers 2002). The resulting lack of attention that has been given to other times and spaces has necessarily limited our collective understanding of slave naming patterns. The purpose of the current investigation is to help address this geo-temporal oversight. With that goal in mind, the present empirical study explores the naming patterns of fugitive slaves as advertised in newspapers published in New York and New Jersey between 1730 and 1790. Using the techniques of corpus linguistics, this investigation analyzed 147 runaway slave advertisements featuring 150 slave names. These onomastic exemplars comprised four name-types: first names, surnames, nicknames, and aliases. Onomastic patterns were identified using descriptive statistics as well chi-squared and Fisher’s exact tests. Special attention was paid to e...
Each year, the US Government receives hundreds of petitions to alter the official name of a geogr... more Each year, the US Government receives hundreds of petitions to alter the official name of a geographical feature. Since the nineteenth century, the US Board on Geographic Names (USBGN) has had the task of assessing these requests with a view toward standardizing the nation’s toponymic inventory. During its decision-making, the Board seeks to maximize consistency in the formation, selection, and application of official toponyms, while minimizing potential public injury. The challenges in this regulatory balancing act are particularly apparent with regard to indigenous place names. Using an original corpus compiled from 10 years of USBGN petitions, this empirical study identified patterns in the type, motivation, and argumentation used to (dis)honor Native American identities, histories, and cultures via names and naming. After introducing the UsBGN's policies and practices, these findings are presented with several illustrative examples. The article ends by contextualizing the findings within the broader PC debate and offering future research suggestions.
On January 20, 2017, Republican candidate Donald J. Trump was sworn in as the 45th President of t... more On January 20, 2017, Republican candidate Donald J. Trump was sworn in as the 45th President of the United States. The run-up to this inauguration was marked by unusually hostile political rhetoric. For many, this linguistic divisiveness was fodder for the post-election surge in physical and verbal aggression. Using a mixed-method approach that combines actuarial and speech act assessment, this study examines 30 Anonymous Threatening Communications sent during the US presidential election for the presence and prevalence of (para)linguistic features associated with verbal and physical threat. The article argues for more forensic linguistic research into mainstream producers and consumers of hate-filled political rhetoric.
The Lanham Act was enacted by the US Congress in 1946 with the overall purpose of regularizing th... more The Lanham Act was enacted by the US Congress in 1946 with the overall purpose of regularizing the nation’s registration and use of trademarks. Despite undergoing a number of amendments since its enactment, for the past 70 years, the Act has continued to provide key federal protections against not only the unlawful or deceptive use of trademarks. It also strictly forbad the registration of marks that reasonably could be considered immoral, scandalous, contemptuous, or disparaging. Though hailed by some as an important protection against hateful speech in the public marketplace, others have questioned whether the statute violates the constitutional right to Freedom of Speech. This year, the US Supreme Court issued a ruling that put an official end to this legal controversy. This article provides a detailed description of the case that led to this landmark decision and discusses some of the potential implications for trademarking potentially disparaging brand names.
ABSTRACT In January 1982, the Republic of Seychelles became the first country to make its Creole,... more ABSTRACT In January 1982, the Republic of Seychelles became the first country to make its Creole, Seselwa, an official medium of instruction in its multilingual education system. Overall, this innovative language policy has positively affected student levels of personal motivation and academic success. Nevertheless, the nation’s continued use of Creole-mediated multilingual education (CMME) has not been without critics. Chief among them have been the expected purveyors of the CMME policy – teachers. Using a mixed-method survey research design, this study investigated teacher attitudes towards the nation’s three official languages: Seselwa, English, and French; and the Seychelles’ CMME policy. The overall research result was as sobering as it was clear. Despite the government’s 30-year commitment to CMME, the majority of the teachers polled still questioned the efficacy of this policy. Importantly, as this investigation demonstrates, a primary source of this doubt may be found in the teachers’ own language profiles. The implications of these research findings for the future of CMME in Seychelles are discussed and recommendations for future investigations of vernacular instruction are presented.
Through its sheer volume, the US baby-boom generation brought with it many profound, changes in t... more Through its sheer volume, the US baby-boom generation brought with it many profound, changes in the US American society. However, the dynamism of this generation cannot be explained solely by its numerical magnitude. The individuals who emerged as the cultural leaders of this generation also demanded widespread systemic changes to the world they had inherited. Rather than meekly conforming to the pre-established norms of a power elite, they demanded revolutionary changes to the pre-existing hierarchies that had systematically disenfranchised women and people of color both at home and abroad. One of the primary tools of this counter-culture was names and naming. This article examines the onomastic legacies of three recently deceased leaders of this protest generation. As will be shown here, their struggle for personal, professional, individual, and social independence continues to serve as an unforgettable role model for today’s generation and beyond.
In this small-scale, mixed-method investigation, the potential presence of school teacher and tea... more In this small-scale, mixed-method investigation, the potential presence of school teacher and teacher trainees’ name-based biases in reaction to schoolchildren’s first names was investigated in two experiments. In the first, German school teachers were asked to qualitatively and quantitatively assess an authentic literary essay written by a monolingual native-speaking German schoolchild. To test for possible name biases, three nearly identical versions of the essay were prepared. The only difference between them was the first names of the child listed as having authored the essay (Uwe, Achilleas, and Mustafa). In the second experiment, the set of personal names was expanded to include female first names (i.e. Heike, Athena, and Fatma) and the study participants were volunteer teacher trainees. In both experiments, evidence for covert name biases was identified. On the basis of these and other findings, the article concludes with concrete suggestions for future research. Chief among ...
The fifteenth annual Name of the Year vote was held during the online annual conference of the Am... more The fifteenth annual Name of the Year vote was held during the online annual conference of the American Name Society on January 23, 2022. The vote was chaired by Deborah Walker, the ANS Name of the Year Coordinator, and was attended by 23 international onomasticians. This report provides a summary of the deliberations and gives background information about the onomastic nominations.
For more than a decade, the American Name Society has singled out an outstanding article to be gi... more For more than a decade, the American Name Society has singled out an outstanding article to be given the Best Article of the Year Award. To select the publication to receive this prestigious honor, each member of the Editorial Board independently reviewed all of the articles that had been published in 2022. As per ANS tradition, obituaries, notes, editorials, book reviews, and articles contributed by the Editor-in-Chief were excluded from consideration. To make their decision, Board Members were asked to select the publications which they felt possessed the highest degree of creativity; demonstrated the best writing style; employed the soundest research methodology; and had the greatest potential to make a lasting and significant contribution to onomastics. Then, in a secret ballot, the Board members cast their votes. This report details the results of that selection process and reveals the 2022 winner of the ANS Best Article of the Year award.
This special distinction is given to a new scholar whose work is judged by a panel of onomastic r... more This special distinction is given to a new scholar whose work is judged by a panel of onomastic researchers to be of superior academic quality.
The ubiquitous image of the sprawling 19th century Southern plantation has meant that much of the... more The ubiquitous image of the sprawling 19th century Southern plantation has meant that much of the research on US slave names has focused on regions below the mid-Atlantic (Desrochers 2002). The resulting lack of attention that has been given to other times and spaces has necessarily limited our collective understanding of slave naming patterns. The purpose of the current investigation is to help address this geo-temporal oversight. With that goal in mind, the present empirical study explores the naming patterns of fugitive slaves as advertised in newspapers published in New York and New Jersey between 1730 and 1790. Using the techniques of corpus linguistics, this investigation analyzed 147 runaway slave advertisements featuring 150 slave names. These onomastic exemplars comprised four name-types: first names, surnames, nicknames, and aliases. Onomastic patterns were identified using descriptive statistics as well chi-squared and Fisher’s exact tests. Special attention was paid to e...
Each year, the US Government receives hundreds of petitions to alter the official name of a geogr... more Each year, the US Government receives hundreds of petitions to alter the official name of a geographical feature. Since the nineteenth century, the US Board on Geographic Names (USBGN) has had the task of assessing these requests with a view toward standardizing the nation’s toponymic inventory. During its decision-making, the Board seeks to maximize consistency in the formation, selection, and application of official toponyms, while minimizing potential public injury. The challenges in this regulatory balancing act are particularly apparent with regard to indigenous place names. Using an original corpus compiled from 10 years of USBGN petitions, this empirical study identified patterns in the type, motivation, and argumentation used to (dis)honor Native American identities, histories, and cultures via names and naming. After introducing the UsBGN's policies and practices, these findings are presented with several illustrative examples. The article ends by contextualizing the findings within the broader PC debate and offering future research suggestions.
On January 20, 2017, Republican candidate Donald J. Trump was sworn in as the 45th President of t... more On January 20, 2017, Republican candidate Donald J. Trump was sworn in as the 45th President of the United States. The run-up to this inauguration was marked by unusually hostile political rhetoric. For many, this linguistic divisiveness was fodder for the post-election surge in physical and verbal aggression. Using a mixed-method approach that combines actuarial and speech act assessment, this study examines 30 Anonymous Threatening Communications sent during the US presidential election for the presence and prevalence of (para)linguistic features associated with verbal and physical threat. The article argues for more forensic linguistic research into mainstream producers and consumers of hate-filled political rhetoric.
The Lanham Act was enacted by the US Congress in 1946 with the overall purpose of regularizing th... more The Lanham Act was enacted by the US Congress in 1946 with the overall purpose of regularizing the nation’s registration and use of trademarks. Despite undergoing a number of amendments since its enactment, for the past 70 years, the Act has continued to provide key federal protections against not only the unlawful or deceptive use of trademarks. It also strictly forbad the registration of marks that reasonably could be considered immoral, scandalous, contemptuous, or disparaging. Though hailed by some as an important protection against hateful speech in the public marketplace, others have questioned whether the statute violates the constitutional right to Freedom of Speech. This year, the US Supreme Court issued a ruling that put an official end to this legal controversy. This article provides a detailed description of the case that led to this landmark decision and discusses some of the potential implications for trademarking potentially disparaging brand names.
ABSTRACT In January 1982, the Republic of Seychelles became the first country to make its Creole,... more ABSTRACT In January 1982, the Republic of Seychelles became the first country to make its Creole, Seselwa, an official medium of instruction in its multilingual education system. Overall, this innovative language policy has positively affected student levels of personal motivation and academic success. Nevertheless, the nation’s continued use of Creole-mediated multilingual education (CMME) has not been without critics. Chief among them have been the expected purveyors of the CMME policy – teachers. Using a mixed-method survey research design, this study investigated teacher attitudes towards the nation’s three official languages: Seselwa, English, and French; and the Seychelles’ CMME policy. The overall research result was as sobering as it was clear. Despite the government’s 30-year commitment to CMME, the majority of the teachers polled still questioned the efficacy of this policy. Importantly, as this investigation demonstrates, a primary source of this doubt may be found in the teachers’ own language profiles. The implications of these research findings for the future of CMME in Seychelles are discussed and recommendations for future investigations of vernacular instruction are presented.
Through its sheer volume, the US baby-boom generation brought with it many profound, changes in t... more Through its sheer volume, the US baby-boom generation brought with it many profound, changes in the US American society. However, the dynamism of this generation cannot be explained solely by its numerical magnitude. The individuals who emerged as the cultural leaders of this generation also demanded widespread systemic changes to the world they had inherited. Rather than meekly conforming to the pre-established norms of a power elite, they demanded revolutionary changes to the pre-existing hierarchies that had systematically disenfranchised women and people of color both at home and abroad. One of the primary tools of this counter-culture was names and naming. This article examines the onomastic legacies of three recently deceased leaders of this protest generation. As will be shown here, their struggle for personal, professional, individual, and social independence continues to serve as an unforgettable role model for today’s generation and beyond.
In this small-scale, mixed-method investigation, the potential presence of school teacher and tea... more In this small-scale, mixed-method investigation, the potential presence of school teacher and teacher trainees’ name-based biases in reaction to schoolchildren’s first names was investigated in two experiments. In the first, German school teachers were asked to qualitatively and quantitatively assess an authentic literary essay written by a monolingual native-speaking German schoolchild. To test for possible name biases, three nearly identical versions of the essay were prepared. The only difference between them was the first names of the child listed as having authored the essay (Uwe, Achilleas, and Mustafa). In the second experiment, the set of personal names was expanded to include female first names (i.e. Heike, Athena, and Fatma) and the study participants were volunteer teacher trainees. In both experiments, evidence for covert name biases was identified. On the basis of these and other findings, the article concludes with concrete suggestions for future research. Chief among ...
The fifteenth annual Name of the Year vote was held during the online annual conference of the Am... more The fifteenth annual Name of the Year vote was held during the online annual conference of the American Name Society on January 23, 2022. The vote was chaired by Deborah Walker, the ANS Name of the Year Coordinator, and was attended by 23 international onomasticians. This report provides a summary of the deliberations and gives background information about the onomastic nominations.
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