A Teacher’s Guide to Learning Student Names: Why You Should, Why It’s Hard, How You Can. By Michelle D. Miller. Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press. 2024. Pp. 113 (Paperback). $14.95. ISBN: 978-0-8061-9466-0.

On January 9, 2025, the American Name Society convened a special session to conduct the Name of the Year (NoY) election. The online deliberation was chaired by Name of the Year Coordinator, Laurel Sutton, and the new ANS President, Dr. Brandon Simonson. The report provides a detailed summation of the Name of the Year election results and gives background information about the decision-making process.

The Boggart: Folklore, History, Place-Names and Dialect. By Simon Young. Exeter: University of Exeter Press. 2022. Pp. 229 (Hardback). £60. ISBN: 978-905826-90-3.

Recent years have seen the proliferation in the use of the personal name Karen as a term of derision. While much has been written in the popular media about the complex socio-political issues surrounding this development, comparatively little consideration has been given to how the millions of real-life people named Karen have been affected by this development. After providing background information about the etymology, spread, and changing popular perception of Karen, this article presents the results of a mixed-method online survey of 681 respondents named Karen or one its variants. Using a combination of open-ended questions and standardized psychometric scales (the Everyday Discrimination Scale, Hypervigilance Scale, and PTSD Checklist for the DSM-5), this Participant Action Research investigated the frequency, severity, and location of prejudice and discrimination experienced by the respondents and the devastating effects this widespread namism has had upon their everyday lives. The findings of this investigation are placed within the broader context of toxic name-calling. The article ends with concrete suggestions for future research into the personal and societal harms caused by namism.

The common narrow lane in ancient cities of North China, the hutong, has long been of interest to scholars. However, the limited onomastic research on hutong names is mostly confined to Beijing, leaving the toponymic landscape of other well-known ancient cities underexplored. In view of this gap, this study, based on 67 hutong names and 201 non-hutong names of Kaifeng, explores the phonetic, morphological, and semantic features of these hodonyms. It is our hope that the findings of this study will improve public awareness of toponyms and provide references for toponymic research in China.

The Wordhord: Daily Life in Old English. By Hana Videen. Princeton: Princeton University Press. 2022. Pp. 296. (Paperback) $23.95. ISBN 13: 9780691232744.

Names, Naming, and the Law: Onomastics, Identity, Power, and Policy. Edited by I. M. Nick. New York: Routledge. 2023. Pp. 226 (Hardback). $199.00. ISBN 13: 987-1-032-55641-3.

This article investigates the motivations and ideological foundations of religion-based personal names among a sampled population of the Tiv community who are predominantly found along the middle Benue Valley in Benue State, North-central Nigeria. The names bestowed by adherents of different religions (traditional Tiv, Christianity and Islam) reflect a personally determined system of representation based on a belief in spiritual practices and icons like witchcraft, an afterlife, the influence of ancestors, and a supreme God. This investigation demonstrates how religious names in the Tiv sample reflect a strong symbolic association between the name-givers and their faith or beliefs. The names also provide a platform whereby religious adherents can initiate a dialogue with supernatural forces. Religion-based names also permit adherents to project a healthy self-image and create psychological unity thanks to the sense of protection that they are believed to confer.1

This study aimed to examine whether name characteristics of UK neurologists are related to their academic career success. Biographical information and bibliometrics of all UK consultant neurologists (N=1010) were obtained from online sources. Neurologists with a shorter surname and a higher consonant:vowel ratio in their surname had more citations. The surname's complexity was negatively associated with the h-index and citations, and was lower in neurologists currently affiliated with a top university. Top university graduates for their medical degree had fewer syllables in their first and last name. Neurologists with a popular forename had higher bibliometrics, were faster in publishing their first paper, more likely to be top university graduates for their medical degree and more likely to be currently affiliated with a university. Neurologists with a popular surname were more likely to be top university graduates for their medical degree. Male neurologists with more masculine forenames were more likely to be top university graduates, were faster in publishing their first paper, and had higher bibliometrics. This study revealed that there is an association between name characteristics and career success of UK consultant neurologists.

Toponyms of the Tibetan Plateau have been scarcely studied. To help address that need, this study explores cross-cultural toponymy and phonetic opacity. The investigation focuses on toponyms containing the Tibetan word བྱ tza ‘bird’ that are used in Yulshul County in the Sanjiangyuan National Park, Qinghai Province. The research is based on personal interviews with 56 respondents and analyzing transliterations of bird-related toponyms for river, valley, and mountain names. Additionally, bird watching was used to gain important environmental insights. Twenty-nine bird-related toponyms were discovered and 59 bird species were recorded in the valley. There was no shared cognitive understanding of the toponyms Bird River and Bird Trace Valley. It is speculated that this result may be due to the coupling effect of pronunciation nuance in the local Tibetan dialect and misleading transliterations in Chinese. Overall, the findings tentatively suggest the systematic and consistent Chinese transliteration of local Tibetan toponyms related to birds is important for keeping the connotations of these toponyms alive.