Name and naming

Introduction

• Onomastics

• Etymology of onomastics

• What exactly is onomastics?

• What are anthroponyms and toponyms?

• Anthroponymics.

• Onomastic space

• Proper names

• Onomastics as a science

• Onomastics as an Interdisciplinary Study

• Names and naming – Final Thoughts

Hot terminology

• Onomastics, Onomastic is a science, anthroponyms and toponyms, Onomastic space,

Proper names

What is Onomastics?

• Onomastics or onomatology is the study of the etymology, history, and use of proper
names. An orthonym is the proper name of the object, it is the object of onomastic
study.

• Onomastics can be helpful in data mining, with applications such as named-entity

recognition, or recognition of the origin of names. It has also been used in historical
research to identify ethnic minorities within wider populations.

ETIMOLOGY OF ONOMASTICS

Onomastics originates from the Greek onomastikós (ὀνομαστικός, 'of or belonging to

naming'),itself derived from ónoma (ὄνομα, 'name’).

WHAT EXACTLY IS ONOMASTICS?

In the field of linguistics, onomastics is the study of proper names, especially the names of
people (anthroponyms) and places (toponyms). A person who studies the origins, distributions,
and variations of proper names is an onomastician.
- Onomastics is "both an old and a young discipline," says Carole Hough. "Since Ancient
Greece, names have been regarded as central to the study of language, throwing light on how
humans who communicate with each other and organize their world... The investigation
of name origins, on the other hand, is more recent, it wasn’t developed until the twentieth
century in some areas" (The Oxford Handbook of Names and Naming, 2016).

What are anthroponyms and toponyms?

• Anthroponomastics: branch of onomastics scholarly studying anthroponyms

• Anthroponym: proper name of a person or a group of persons

• Anthroponymy: branch of onomastics scholarly studying anthroponyms.

• Toponym: proper name of a place, both inhabited and uninhabited; examples of

toponyms include names given to a mountain, water, island, wood, town, village, field,
meadow, street, route, etc. (e.g., Uppsala, Mont Blanc, Seine, Sardinia, Auckland).

• NOTE: If limited to the planet Earth, toponyms can also be called geographical names.

• Toponymy: the set of toponyms within a specific territory/region etc.

What are three different types of toponyms?

• Types of toponym include agronym (the name of a field or pasture), dromonym (the
name of a transportation route), drymonym (the name of a forest or grove), econym
(the name of a village or town), limnonym (the name of a lake or pond), and necronym
(the name of a cemetery or burial ground).

• How do I learn toponymy?

• There are two basic ways to conduct toponymic research — one concentrating on the
etymology, meaning, and origin of toponyms, and one focusing on the toponyms of a
region and examining patterns of these names.

Anthroponymics.

• Anthroponymy is the study of anthroponyms, the proper names of human beings,

both individual and collective. Highest value in onomastics is anthroponymics.
Anthroponymy is a branch of onomastics. . The study of personal names
(anthroponymy) is related to genealogy, sociology, and anthropology.

Onomastic space

Proper names react sharply to any changes that have occurred and are occurring in society,
cultures and nature. Therefore, with the help of onomastic research, it is possible to trace
many important historical events that have occurred with humanity. Onomastic space can be
described as a nominal continuum that exists in the minds of people and in each different
culture.

The religions of many nations, the first names, places on earth (known at that time), and
actually people themselves. This objects filled the onomastic space of the consciousness of
ancient people. Over the course of time, expanding the boundaries of knowledge, man began
to thereby expand the boundaries of onomastic space. Everything that humanity has known,
discovered, invented and created now has its own names and fills a truly huge onomastic
space of all humanity.

Proper names

We live surrounded by words - the names of objects, processes, qualities, phenomena, the
people around us. But there are words that occupy a special position in the language system -
proper names. We come across them almost every day, we refer to them as real names of
existing people, cities and rivers, and the names of objects and subjects created by human
imagination (the names of the heroes literary works, gods). Very often, a person asks questions
about where this or that name, surname, name came from, why the city, river, country are
called so, etc. Often it is very difficult or even impossible to explain names, because these
names are so ancient that they are taken for granted, sometimes the "nominative
connotation" of proper names is erased, and they become common nouns, and then the
author, and even the language disappeared. Other proper names are so young that the
generation living now knows their authors, or at least the history and country of origin.

Onomastics as a science

Onomastics is a very valuable section of modern linguistics, a complex linguistic discipline,

equipped with its own terminological apparatus, its own range of problems, research history
and its own research methods. Onomastics is a science (section of linguistics) about proper
names of all types, (names of people, animals, mythical creatures, tribes and peoples,
countries, rivers, mountains, human settlements), it is a science about the history, about
borrowing proper names into other languages, about the laws of their development and
functioning.
Onomastics as an Interdisciplinary Study

Onomastics, although an autonomous discipline, overlaps the subject matter of many other
disciplines since name use is central to human activity. Onomastics relates to every discipline,
subject field, and activity that human beings pursue: anthropology, business, cartography,
folklore, lexicography, history, literature, philosophy, politics, psychology, sociology and
others. You can read about this more in the article of professor John Algeo, University of
Georgia.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/272255241_Onomastics_as_an_Interdisciplinary
_Study/link/62836ba37da61013d7488f0c/download

• The complexity and diversity of the object of onomastics (proper name) largely
determines the interdisciplinary nature of this discipline. Some scientists (O.N.
Trubachev, V. Tashitsky, for example) consider it expedient to take onomastics outside
the framework of linguistics and separate it into a separate discipline.
 • It should be noted that onomastics is an interdisciplinary cognitive field, this science
has close ties with history, cultural studies, local history, philology, archeology and
linguistic disciplines - semantics and semiotics.

Names and naming – Final Thoughts

• In the 21st century, onomastic studies became a developing part of linguistic studies.

• The term onomastics comes from Greek ‘onoma’ and it means name. Onomastics is
the study of proper names. As William Bright (2003) points out, such study is carried
out as a part of some larger fields like linguistics, ethnography, philology, history,
philosophy, etc.

• He, further on, discusses the term ‘name’ which, he says, people use when they refer
to almost everything (e.g., “Banana is the name of the fruit.”). As he notices, in this
example, the word ‘name’ is almost synonymous with the word ‘noun’.

• People also use the term ‘name’ when they think of ‘proper names’ although there is
a general category of names. Bright distinguishes two principal types of proper names:
personal names or anthroponyms and place names or toponyms.

• Names and naming always attract historians, geographers, ethnographers,

psychologists. So, it can be said that studies of names have interdisciplinary nature, so
onomastics is an interdisciplinary cognitive field, this science has close ties with
history, cultural studies, local history, philology, archeology and linguistic disciplines -
semantics and semiotics.

• Some experts in the area (O.N. Trubachev, V. Tashitsky) think that the complexity and
diversity of the object of onomastics (proper name) largely determines the
interdisciplinary nature of this discipline. They consider that onomastics should be
taken outside the framework of linguistics into a separate discipline. Personal names
or anthroponyms and place names or toponyms.

Questions

1) What is onomastics?

Onomastics or onomatology is the study of the etymology, history, and use of proper
names.

2) What are anthroponyms?

• Anthroponomastics: branch of onomastics scholarly studying anthroponyms

• Anthroponym: proper name of a person or a group of persons

• Anthroponymy: branch of onomastics scholarly studying anthroponyms.

3) What are toponyms?

• Toponym: proper name of a place, both inhabited and uninhabited; examples of

toponyms include names given to a mountain, water, island, wood, town, village, field,
meadow, street, route, etc. (e.g., Uppsala, Mont Blanc, Seine, Sardinia, Auckland).

• NOTE: If limited to the planet Earth, toponyms can also be called geographical names.
• Toponymy: the set of toponyms within a specific territory/region etc.

4) Tell about different types of toponyms?

• Types of toponym include agronym (the name of a field or pasture), dromonym (the
name of a transportation route), drymonym (the name of a forest or grove), econym
(the name of a village or town), limnonym (the name of a lake or pond), and necronym
(the name of a cemetery or burial ground).

5) What is anthroponymics?

• Anthroponymy is the study of anthroponyms, the proper names of human beings,

both individual and collective. Highest value in onomastics is anthroponymics.
Anthroponymy is a branch of onomastics. . The study of personal names
(anthroponymy) is related to genealogy, sociology, and anthropology.

6) What is onomastic space?

• Proper names react sharply to any changes that have occurred and are occurring in
society, cultures and nature. Therefore, with the help of onomastic research, it is
possible to trace many important historical events that have occurred with humanity.
Onomastic space can be described as a nominal continuum that exists in the minds of
people and in each different culture.

7) What sciences is associated with onomastics?

• Onomastics, although an autonomous discipline, overlaps the subject matter of many

other disciplines since name use is central to human activity. Onomastics relates to
every discipline, subject field, and activity that human beings pursue: anthropology,
business, cartography, folklore, lexicography, history, literature, philosophy, politics,
psychology, sociology and others.