Watching Onomastics Come of Age

Abstract

During four decades of membership in the American Name Society, I have witnessed the maturing of onomastic studies in the United States and enjoyed the privilege of associating with the pioneers of our discipline. The society has provided scholarly growth, collegial friendships, and exciting involvement in onomastics. My introduction to the American Name Society came from Dr. Lili Rabel-Heymann, one of my graduate professors of linguistics at Louisiana State University. She described the stimulating activities of the society and gave me an application for membership. Upon completion of doctoral studies and my return to teaching at East Texas State University, I attended my first meeting of the American Name Society in Washington D.C., .in 1960. The society was completing its first decade when I became a member. The papers-on fascinating topicswere enthralling, but the opportunity to be in the same banquet hall with legendary founders of the society was awesome. Elsdon Smith, Margaret Bryant, Allen Walker Read, Frederic Cassidy, Francis Utley, Kelsie Harder, Leonard Ashley-all names I recognized from their published scholarship-were there. And they carried on genuine conversations and showed interest in a starry~eyed y()ung Texan. Later, I would work on various ANS projects and develop friendships with Lurline Coltharp, Donald Orth, W. F. H. Nicolaisen, Audrey Duckert, Ed Ehrensperger, Wallace McMullen, Byrd Granger, Grace Alvarez-Altman, John Algeo, Lewis McArthur, Alan Rayburn, Clarence Barnhart, Robert Barnhart, Raven and Virginia McDavid, and other outstanding names scholars, and at a meeting in San Francisco, I would meet George Stewart, whose Names on the Land had fired my imagination in graduate school.