CfP: Privacy, identity and linguistics - deidentification, pseudonymisation, anonymisation in linguistics

We would like to invite contributions to an anthology about privacy, identity and linguistics. Contributions should be about how linguists are (and have been) anonymising or pseudonymising their data, how participants (and people mentioned) are affected by different means to protect personal and sensitive information, and finally, how linguistic research is affected now, and in the future, by the use of different deidentification techniques.

Researchers have the ethical responsibility to protect and respect research participants, their personal information and any sensitive information that might be disclosed in the original data (cf. ALLEA 2023, The Swedish Research Council 2024, Finnish National Board on Research Integrity TENK 2019). In recent years several developments have meant increased attention to the personal and sensitive information that might be contained in our research data and how this should be handled to protect individuals. The General Data Protection Regulation, GDPR (EU 2016/679), emphasises the need to reflect on how we treat personal information. At the same time there is an increased interest in open data in relation to open science, reproducibility and sustainability (UNESCO 2021), as well as a need for (authentic) data to train Large Language Models, LLMs (and hence Artificial intelligence, AI). 

Little attention has so far been given to the effects anonymisation and pseudonymisation have on research possibilities and research findings. There is hardly any research about what deidentification measures mean for linguistic research, or for the people who participate in linguistic research by agreeing to be interviewed, submitting texts they have written, or people who are mentioned in that data, etc. (cf. Volodina et al 2025; Szawerna et al. 2024; Wang et al. 2024).

Some researchers prefer non-anonymity for various reasons. This can be part of a development to move towards “empowerment of the participants” (see e.g. Deakin-Smith et al. 2025; Terkourafi 2025; D’Arcy & Bender 2023) or giving “agency” to research participants (Pretorius & Patel 2025) some researchers argue that participants should have the right to decide whether they are named or be given a chance to choose (parts of) their own pseudonym (Vainio 2013; Lahman et al. 2023; Deakin-Smith et al. 2025). But the reason can also be that they consider their participants, or the studied organisation, to be so unique and well-known that anonymity is, in their opinion, impossible to maintain (cf. Vainio 2013: 686).

It is also important to consider whether and how you should indicate what has been replaced, and/or say how you have masked personal and sensitive information (Volodina et al. 2025). There is no agreement about this issue, and we need to consider not only the risks it might involve for the participants and people mentioned in data, but also what it means for transparency, reproducibility/replicability and validation in research (cf. Berez-Kroeker et al. 2017; 2021)? Will pseudonymised data still be useful for linguistic research? Can the data still be considered authentic language data? Can it be used to train LLMs? Will it become too different to original authentic data, and skew both training and research?

We invite contributions in English which discuss these issues and others related to the topic of privacy, identity and linguistics. We are particularly interested in discussions which concern languages, including dialects and minority languages, in northern Europe, but also invite chapters on other languages and on general linguistics. We suggest that contributions could concern the following or similar issues:

• Which information you are currently replacing, but also how and why this is done
• How personal information in data and metadata has been treated in your area of linguistics historically
• How replacements of personal and/or sensitive information affect the usability of data in your area of linguistics and the validity of any conclusions
• How replacements of personal and/or sensitive information might affect results in your area of linguistics
• How replacements (might) affect the semantics or pragmatics of the linguistic data as well as the perception and readability of the data
• How replacements of personal and/or sensitive information might affect the participants in research in your area of linguistics, including pro’s and con’s of letting participants choose whether and how their personal information should be obscured in the data
• How researchers can navigate between their different responsibilities: protecting individuals from harm, while also acknowledging their contributions to the research, and doing reliable linguistic research that can be important to society.

Important datesPermalink

Preliminary:

• 30th January, 2026: deadline for expression of interest SUBMIT HERE
• 31st March, 2026: 500-word abstract plus chapter outline
• 30th September, 2026: chapter submission deadline (preliminary length max 9 000 words including everything)
• February, 2027: notification from the first round of reviews
• June, 2027: final versions due

Abstracts and chapters will be peer-reviewed. We are currently primarily considering one of De Gruyter Brill’s series as a publication venue.

ReferencesPermalink

ALLEA. 2023. The European Code of Conduct for Research Integrity – revised edition 2023. Berlin. (DOI 10.26356/ECOC) https://allea.org/code-of-conduct/#toggle-id-15 (Latest access: 14 Nov. 2025)

Berez-Kroeker, A. L., Gawne, L., Kelly, B. F. & Heston, T. 2017. A survey of current reproducibility practices in linguistics journals, 2003–2012. https://sites.google.com/a/hawaii.edu/data-citation/survey

Berez-Kroeker, A. L., McDonnell, B., Collister, L. B. & Koller, E. 2021. Data, data management, and reproducible research in linguistics: on the need for The open handbook of linguistic data management. In: Berez-Kroeker, A. L., McDonnell, B., Koller, E., Collister, L. B. (eds.) The Open Handbook of Linguistic Data Management. Cambridge, Massachusetts & London: MIT Press. Pp. 3–8.

D’Arcy, A., & Bender, E. M. (2023). Ethics in linguistics. Annual Review of Linguistics, 9(1), 49-69.

Deakin-Smith, H., Pilcher, J., Flaherty, J., Coffey, A., & Makis, E. 2025. The research politics of (re) naming participants: A sociology of names perspective. Qualitative Research, 25(3), 629-647.

EU Commission. 2016. General data protection regulation. Official Journal of the European Union, 59, 1–88.

Finnish National Board on Research Integrity, TENK 2019. The ethical principles of research with human participants and ethical review in the human sciences in Finland. Publications of the Finnish National Board on Research Integrity TENK 3/2019.

Lahman, M. K., Thomas, R., & Teman, E. D. 2023. A good name: Pseudonyms in research. Qualitative Inquiry, 29(6), 678-685.

Pretorius, L., & Patel, S. V. 2025. What’s in a name? Participants’ pseudonym choices as a practice of empowerment and epistemic justice. International Journal of Research & Method in Education, 48(4), pp. 371-388.

The Swedish Research Council. 2024. Good Research Practice. Stockholm: The Swedish Research Council. https://www.vr.se/english/analysis/reports/our-reports/2025-07-03-good-research-practice-2024.html

Szawerna, M., Dobnik, S., Lindström Tiedemann, T., Muñoz Sánchez, R., Vu, X.-S. & Volodina, E. 2024. Pseudonymization Categories across Domain Boundaries. Proceedings of the 2024 Joint International Conference on Computational Linguistics, Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC-COLING 2024). European Language Resources Association. pp. 13303–13314.

Terkourafi, M. 2025. An ethics for linguistics? What, why, and how?. Linguistics, 63(2), pp. 317–347.

UNESCO. 2021. Recommendation on Open Science. https://doi.org/10.54677/MNMH8546

Vainio, A. 2013. Beyond research ethics: Anonymity as ‘ontology’,‘analysis’ and ‘independence’. Qualitative Research, 13(6). SAGE Publications. pp. 685–698.

Volodina, E., Dobnik, S., Lindström Tiedemann, T., Muñoz Sánchez, R., Szawerna, M. I., Södergård, L. & Vu, X.-S. 2025. Towards shared standards for pseudonymization of research data. Huminfra Conference proceedings, 12th–13th Nov. 2025, Stockholm. https://www.huminfra.se/resources/humevents/hic-2025_proceedings.pdf

Wang, S., Ramdani, J. M., Sun, S., Bose P. & X Gao. 2024. “Naming Research Participants in Qualitative Language Learning Research: Numbers, Pseudonyms, or Real Names?” Journal of Language, Identity & Education. pp. 1–14.

Biblical Names Across The United States and South Korea

 A scholarly argument for why Sacred Names Across the Pacific belongs on your shelf

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There's a quiet revolution happening in naming practices, and most of us are missing it entirely.

When a Korean Presbyterian family in Seoul names their daughter 에스더 (Esther), and simultaneously an evangelical couple in Tennessee chooses the same name for theirs, something fascinating is occurring beneath the surface. These aren't parallel choices -they're the visible traces of how ancient texts colonize modern identity across radically different linguistic and cultural systems.

Marcus Paterson and Jayden Yoon's Sacred Names Across the Pacific offers the first systematic excavation of this phenomenon, and it's far more intellectually provocative than the devotional packaging might suggest.

The Transliteration Problem as Cultural Theory

Here's what makes this book intellectually serious: it treats transliteration not as a technical problem but as a site where theological universalism collides with linguistic particularity.

How does Hebrew דָּוִד (David) become Korean 다윗 (Da-wit)? The answer reveals everything about what gets preserved and what gets sacrificed when religious texts cross civilizational boundaries. The Korean Christian must accept that the phonetic possibilities of Hangul will never quite capture the Hebrew consonantal root. Yet the name must work - must sound natural to Korean ears, must follow Korean phonotactic rules, must integrate into a culture where surnames come first and given names carry Confucian weight.

Paterson and Yoon document thousands of these micro-negotiations. Each transliteration is a small theological-linguistic compromise, and cumulatively they map how Christianity's claim to universality confronts the stubborn particularity of language.

What Korea's Naming Revolution Reveals About Secularization Theory

The American trajectory is well-documented: biblical names dominated Puritan New England, persisted through evangelical revivals, and now exist in an increasingly secular marketplace where Noah and Emma are chosen for aesthetic reasons as often as religious ones. The sacred becomes decorative.

But South Korea presents a radically different pattern. Biblical names arrived late - post-Korean War - riding waves of Protestant evangelization. In a single generation, traditional Korean names coexisted with, then partially surrendered to, this imported naming system. A country that for centuries drew names from Sino-Korean characters now produces children named 요셉 (Joseph) and 사라 (Sarah).

This isn't secularization; it's sacralization in fast-forward. Korea offers a controlled experiment: what happens when biblical names enter a society without the multi-century cultural sedimentation they underwent in the West? Do they function differently? Mean differently?

The book's comparative structure lets you see both systems simultaneously - Western gradual secularization versus Eastern rapid adoption - and suddenly you're doing comparative sociology of religion whether you intended to or not.

The Etymological Archaeology

Every entry includes Hebrew/Greek origins, but this isn't Sunday school trivia. Etymological history reveals how names carry theological freight that's often invisible to contemporary users.

Consider Michael - מִיכָאֵל, literally "Who is like God?" That interrogative isn't decorative; it's theological argument embedded in nomenclature, a perpetual question posed every time the name is spoken. When Korean parents choose 미가엘 (Mi-ga-el), do they know they're inscribing their child with this ancient challenge to divine uniqueness? Does it matter?

The book forces confrontation with what we might call nominal theology - the way doctrinal claims survive in fossilized linguistic form long after their original context vanishes. Biblical names are theological artifacts that continue functioning culturally even when their semantic content becomes opaque.

Why Linguists Should Care

For scholars of transliteration, this is a goldmine. The book systematically documents how Hebrew gutturals, Greek diphthongs, and English approximations all get filtered through Korean phonology. You can trace, name by name, how linguistic systems negotiate incompatible sound inventories.

Korean lacks many sounds crucial to biblical names: no f, no v, no z as English speakers pronounce it. Watch what happens: Joseph becomes 요셉 (Yo-sep), preserving the structure while substituting available phonemes. Elizabeth becomes 엘리자벳 (El-li-ja-bet), gaining syllables to accommodate Korean's CV (consonant-vowel) syllable structure.

These aren't corruptions - they're solutions to impossible problems. The book catalogs hundreds of such solutions, creating an inadvertent dataset for cross-linguistic phonological adaptation.

The Assimilation Question

Here's the uncomfortable question lurking beneath the data: Are Korean biblical names evidence of cultural imperialism or creative appropriation?

When Korean Christianity adopts Western naming conventions alongside Western theology, is this cultural erasure - replacing indigenous naming wisdom (where names carried meanings about birth order, familial hopes, cosmic balance) with imported Hebrew forms? Or is it proof that Korean Christians have agency - actively choosing to signal religious identity through nomenclature in ways that feel authentic to them?

The book doesn't moralize, but the data invites the debate. You can track which biblical names Koreans embrace enthusiastically (David, Daniel, Esther) versus which remain rare, suggesting that even within biblical tradition, Korean Christians exercise selective affinity. Some names feel Korean-compatible; others don't. Why?

For Korean-American Families: The Identity Calculation

If you're navigating bicultural identity, this book offers something rare: validation that your struggle is intellectually serious, not just personal confusion.

Choosing a name that works in both English and Korean isn't trivial optimization - it's navigating competing systems of meaning, sound, and social signaling. A Korean-American child named 다니엘/Daniel carries a name that bridges, but bridging isn't the same as belonging. In America, Daniel is so common it's almost neutral; in Korean churches, 다니엘 signals specific religious identity.

The book's dual-language format makes these tensions visible rather than pretending they resolve neatly. That's intellectually honest in ways most parenting guides aren't.

Why This Matters Beyond Names

At its core, Sacred Names Across the Pacific is about how local cultures absorb global religions. Christianity claims universality - same God, same scripture, same salvation across all peoples. But cultures aren't neutral vessels; they transform what they receive.

Biblical names are the visible surface of that transformation. They're where theological universalism meets linguistic particularity, where imported religion negotiates with indigenous culture, where global faith becomes local practice.

Every Korean 사무엘 (Samuel) and every American Micah is participating in this vast, uncoordinated experiment in religious globalization. Most don't know it. This book makes the invisible architecture visible.

The Intellectual Purchase

Buy this book if you're interested in:

• Sociolinguistics of religion: How do sacred languages (Hebrew, Greek) persist through secular vernaculars (English, Korean)?
• Globalization theory: What does naming reveal about how cultures import and domesticate foreign systems?
• Translation studies: How do proper names - supposedly untranslatable - nevertheless get translated constantly?
• Identity formation: How do names construct the selves we become?
• Comparative Christianity: How does the "same" religion function differently across civilizations?

It's marketed as a reference work for parents and pastors. But read against the grain, it's a 500-page dataset documenting one of the most intimate sites where ancient religion meets contemporary identity, where the global crashes into the local, where the ineffable gets reduced to syllables your tongue can actually pronounce.

That tension - between eternal meaning and temporal sound - is what makes names matter. This book takes that tension seriously.

Sacred Names Across the Pacific Marcus Paterson & Jayden Yoon
Available now

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For scholars, the appendices alone justify purchase: popularity rankings across decades, phonological conversion tables, and comparative analysis of naming trends in Korean immigrant communities versus Korea itself. This is serious empirical work dressed in accessible formatting.

24th Slovak Onomastic Conference "Continuity, Variability and Innovation in Onomastics"

Not an official poster.
AI-generated image for illustrative purposes only

The 24th Slovak Onomastic Conference will gather name researchers from August 17-19, 2026, at the Slovak Academy of Sciences Congress Centre in Stará Lesná. This year's theme - "Continuity, Variability and Innovation in Onomastics" - reflects the field's current crossroads between traditional methods and cutting-edge digital approaches. The theme suggests exploration of how naming practices evolve - what persists across time, what changes, and what new approaches are emerging in the study of names. 

Contact: Dr. Iveta Valentová (iveta.valentova@juls.savba.sk)

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Slovenská onomastická konferencia skúma mená medzi tradíciou a inováciou

24. slovenská onomastická konferencia zhromaždí výskumníkov mien od 17. do 19. augusta 2026 v Kongresovom centre SAV Academia v Starej Lesnej. Tohtoročná téma - „Kontinuita, variabilita a inovácie v onomastike" - odráža súčasné postavenie odboru na rozhraní medzi tradičnými metódami a najnovšími digitálnymi prístupmi.

Kontakt: PhDr. Iveta Valentová, PhD. (iveta.valentova@juls.savba.sk)

New Research Positions in Historical Anthroponymy at NTNU (Trondheim)

AI-generated image for illustrative purposes only.
Not an official poster. 

 The Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) in Trondheim is currently advertising three funded research positions in history with a strong onomastic focus. The positions are part of a research initiative examining how first names conveyed information about parental values, beliefs, and social norms in historical Europe, roughly between 1750 and 1950.

This project offers an excellent opportunity for scholars interested in anthroponymy, cultural history, historical demography, religion, social values, and naming practices to contribute to a large-scale, historically grounded investigation of personal naming.

Open Positions

NTNU is inviting applications for:

• Two Postdoctoral positions in History

• One PhD Research Fellow position in History

The successful candidates will work on historical datasets of given names and explore how naming choices reflected ideological, religious, cultural, and societal transformations across Europe during the long nineteenth century and early twentieth century.

Research Focus

The project centers on questions such as:

• How did parental values and beliefs shape first-name choices?

• What social, religious, or political meanings were embedded in naming practices?

• How did naming conventions change across time, regions, and social groups?

These themes place the project at the intersection of onomastics, social history, cultural history, and historical sociology.

Application Deadline

🗓 March 15

Further Information & Application Links

• Two Postdoctoral positions (Senior Researchers in History):
  https://www.jobbnorge.no/en/available-jobs/job/291971/senior-researchers-in-history

• One PhD Research Fellow position in History:
  https://www.jobbnorge.no/en/available-jobs/job/292974/phd-research-fellow-in-history

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Researchers and graduate students with relevant backgrounds are warmly encouraged to apply, and colleagues are invited to share this announcement with potential candidates who may be interested in historical naming, European social history, or quantitative and qualitative approaches to names.

3rd International Scientific Conference “Onomastic Encounters. Research on the Onomastics of the Polish–Ukrainian Borderland”

 

🇬🇧 English

Upcoming International Conference on Borderland Onomastics

On 20 January 2025, the Third International Scientific Conference entitled
“Onomastic Encounters. Research on the Onomastics of the Polish–Ukrainian Borderland” will take place online.

The conference is jointly organised by the University of Warsaw, Prešov University in Prešov, and Yuriy Fedkovych Chernivtsi National University, and brings together scholars from Poland, Ukraine, Slovakia, and other countries.

The programme includes plenary sessions and three thematic sections devoted to:

• contemporary and historical anthroponymy,

• toponomastic research in the Polish–Ukrainian border region,

• onomastics of literary works and cultural texts.

The conference will conclude with a presentation of recent onomastic publications.
All sessions will be held online via Google Meet (time zone: Europe/Warsaw).

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🇵🇱 Polski

Nadchodząca międzynarodowa konferencja onomastyczna

W dniu 20 stycznia 2025 r. odbędzie się III Międzynarodowa Konferencja Naukowa pt.
„Spotkania onomastyczne. Badania onomastyki pogranicza polsko-ukraińskiego”, organizowana w formule online.

Wydarzenie jest wspólną inicjatywą Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego, Prešovskiej Univerzity w Preszowie oraz Czerniowieckiego Uniwersytetu Narodowego im. Jurija Fedkowycza i zgromadzi badaczy z Polski, Ukrainy, Słowacji i innych krajów.

Program konferencji obejmuje obrady plenarne oraz trzy sekcje tematyczne, poświęcone:

• współczesnym i historycznym badaniom antroponimicznym,

• zagadnieniom toponomastyki pogranicza polsko-ukraińskiego,

• onomastyce literatury i tekstów kultury.

Na zakończenie zaplanowano prezentację nowych publikacji naukowych z zakresu onomastyki.
Obrady będą prowadzone online (strefa czasowa: Europe/Warsaw).

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🇺🇦 Українська

Міжнародна наукова конференція з ономастики пограниччя

20 січня 2025 року відбудеться ІІІ Міжнародна наукова конференція
«Ономастичні зустрічі. Дослідження ономастики польсько-українського пограниччя», яка проходитиме в онлайн-форматі.

Співорганізаторами конференції є Варшавський університет, Пряшівський університет у Пряшеві та Чернівецький національний університет імені Юрія Федьковича. Захід об’єднає науковців з України, Польщі, Словаччини та інших країн.

Програма конференції передбачає пленарні засідання та три секції, присвячені:

• сучасним і історичним проблемам антропоніміки,

• дослідженням топоніміки польсько-українського пограниччя,

• ономастиці художніх творів і культурних текстів.

Завершенням конференції стане презентація нових наукових видань з ономастики.
Усі засідання відбуватимуться онлайн (часовий пояс: Europe/Warsaw).

Names That Reveal, Names That Conceal: Literary Onomastics at MLA 2027

AI-generated image for illustrative purposes only.
Not an official poster.

 How much can a name really tell us? And just as importantly: how much can it hide?

These questions lie at the heart of an exciting new Call for Papers announced by the American Name Society for a thematic panel at the Modern Language Association Convention in January 2027. Titled “Names That Reveal; Names That Conceal: Onomastic Sleight of Hand in Global Literature,” the panel invites scholars to explore how names function as instruments of revelation, deception, misdirection, and symbolic play across literary traditions, genres, and media.

The panel will take place during the MLA Convention (#mla27), held 7–10 January 2027 in Los Angeles, California, and will be conducted in a virtual format, ensuring broad international participation.

When Names Become Narrative Strategy

From espionage novels and political allegories to drama, poetry, film, and song lyrics, names are rarely neutral. Authors routinely deploy anthroponyms, charactonyms, toponyms, theonyms, and institutional names to encode meaning, disguise intent, signal irony, or manipulate reader expectations. A seemingly transparent name may conceal a character’s true allegiance; a fabricated place name may echo real-world power structures; a symbolic name may operate as satire, caricature, or ideological critique.

This ANS panel focuses precisely on this onomastic sleight of hand—the deliberate tension between what names appear to disclose and what they strategically obscure. Contributors are encouraged to ask not only how names work in literary texts, but why authors choose particular naming strategies, and what cultural, political, or aesthetic work those names perform.

Submissions may address texts from any historical period, any geographical or linguistic tradition, and any medium, including literature, theater, film, television, digital narratives, or popular culture. Both real-world and fictional naming systems are welcome, as are comparative and theoretical approaches.

A Strong Onomastic Foundation

The call points to a rich scholarly framework in literary and rhetorical onomastics. Useful reference points include the long-standing research tradition represented in NAMES: A Journal of Onomastics, as well as major collective works such as Dorothy Dodge Robbins’ Literary Onomastics, Star Medzerian Vanguri’s Rhetorics of Names and Naming, and the Oxford Handbook of Names and Naming. Together, these works demonstrate how names operate at the intersection of linguistics, literary studies, cultural analysis, and semiotics - exactly the interdisciplinary space this panel aims to cultivate.

Submission Guidelines and Key Dates

Scholars wishing to participate should submit proposals by Monday, 16 March 2026 (11:59 pm EST). Submissions will undergo blind peer review, with notifications sent on or before 27 March 2026.

Proposals should be submitted by email to Dr. Anne W. Anderson, following these instructions:

• Email subject line: “MLA 2027 proposal”

• Email body: Include the proposal title and first line of the abstract, full name(s) of the author(s), institutional affiliation(s), and email address(es)

• Attachment: A PDF containing the proposal title, an abstract of 350–500 words, and a list of works cited
  (Do not include any author-identifying information in the PDF.)

Please note that scholars whose proposals are accepted must be members of both the MLA and the American Name Society in order to present. Memberships must be in place by 7 April 2026.

Why This Panel Matters

At a time when questions of identity, secrecy, power, and representation dominate both literature and public discourse, the study of names offers a uniquely precise analytical lens. This panel highlights how onomastics contributes not only to literary interpretation, but also to broader conversations about ideology, narrative control, and cultural memory.

For scholars working in literary onomastics, stylistics, narratology, cultural studies, or name theory more broadly, this ANS panel at MLA 2027 offers an excellent opportunity to bring name-focused research into dialogue with the wider humanities community.

Researchers interested in how names reveal and conceal meaning are warmly encouraged to submit proposals and take part in what promises to be a stimulating and wide-ranging scholarly exchange.

For questions regarding submissions, contributors may contact Dr. Anne W. Anderson directly.

Talk "The History of North Wales through its Place Names"

Exploring through Place Names

 Sheldons Cafe Bar, Colwyn Bay, LL29 8LG

 Monday 19th January 2026 7:00PM

You may have seen Tirlun sharing videos about the meaning of Welsh place names. You might be curious about the meaning of place names. Whichever it is, come and listen to Joe Roberts aka Tirlun tell us all about his explorations and what he's discovered.

Event Details: Doors Open at 6:30PM; Starts at 7:00PM

Location: Sheldons Cafe Bar, Colwyn Bay, LL29 8LG 

LINK

Programme de la 1ère journée d'étude "DON (Divine Onomastic News)"

Divine Onomastic News

J'ai le plaisir de vous communiquer le programme de la première journée d'étude "DON (Divine Onomastic News)" qui vise à partager les nouveautés en matière d’onomastique divine, principalement dans les aires grecques et sémitiques. L'atelier se tiendra en ligne lundi 19 janvier de 9h30 à 16h30 :

9.30 – 9.45 : Corinne BONNET (SNS, Pisa) – Sylvain LEBRETON (UT2J, Toulouse), Introduction

9.45 – 10.15 : Florian SOMMER (University of Zurich), Linguistic perspectives on Ancient Greek Theonyms

10.15 – 10.45 : Giulia NAFISSI (SNS, Pisa), Temenites, Temenouros and Temenouchos

10.45 – 11.15 : Pause

11.15 – 11.45 : Miriam BIANCO (Sapienza, Università di Roma), Retour à Phrangissa

11h45 – 12h15 : Alessandro BUCCHERI (EPHE, PSL / ANHIMA, Paris), The Botanical Names of Ancient Greek Gods: introducing the ERC-StG-2025 POLYBOTA project

14h – 14h30 : Thomas GALOPPIN (UT2J, PLH-ARTEMIS), Noms d’Hécate ! Autour d’une malédiction corinthienne de l’Antiquité tardive

14h30 – 15h : Enrique NIETO IZQUIERDO (ANHIMA, Paris / HiSoMA, Lyon / Center for Hellenic Studies, Washington), Deux séquences onomastiques à la recherche d’une réinterprétation : les cas d’Ennodia Wastika à Larissa et d’Héraclès Halios à Délos

15h – 15h30 : Pause

15h30 – 16h : Zachary HAINES (University of Viriginia), The Name of Zeus Between Theologies in Archaic and Classical Greece

16h – 16h30 : Corinne BONNET, Sylvain LEBRETON, Giuseppina Marano (SNS Pise & UT2J Toulouse), DCART, a digital Atlas of divine names in the ancient Mediterranean

Vous pourrez vous connecter librement au moyen du lien suivant : https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85697428284?pwd=MabgiOgLQjbWZbSAyY7zhkjVSR7pux.1

Contact: corinne.bonnet@sns.it / sylvain.lebreton@univ-tlse2.fr

Deadline Extended: GfN Annual Conference 2026

 The deadline for abstract submissions to the Annual Conference of the German Society for Name Studies (GfN)

“Onomastics in the Digital Age” (28–30 September 2026, University of Bremen)

has been extended.

🗓️ New deadline: 23 January 2026

The conference aims to reassess the position of onomastics in contemporary research, with a strong focus on digitality: digital research methods, databases, platforms, visualization techniques, and naming practices in digital environments. Contributions from all areas of onomastics are welcome, as well as interdisciplinary perspectives from fields such as Digital Humanities, computer science, history, and geography.

The programme will include:

• Oral papers (20 minutes + 10 minutes discussion)

• Poster presentations, especially encouraging early-career researchers

Abstracts (max. 300 words including references) should be submitted by 23 January 2026 to
📧 onodig26@uni-bremen.de

Fristverlängerung: CfP GfN-Jahrestagung 2026 in Bremen

Die Einreichungsfrist für Abstracts zur Jahrestagung der Gesellschaft für Namenforschung e.V. (GfN)
„Onomastik im digitalen Zeitalter“ (28.–30. September 2026, Universität Bremen)
wurde verlängert.

🗓️ Neue Deadline: 23. Januar 2026

Die Tagung widmet sich der Standortbestimmung und Neuausrichtung der Onomastik unter den Bedingungen der Digitalität. Im Fokus stehen digitale Methoden, Datenbanken, Visualisierungen, neue Forschungsgegenstände sowie Namen im digitalen Raum. Willkommen sind Beiträge aus allen Bereichen der Namenforschung sowie aus angrenzenden Disziplinen wie Digital Humanities, Informatik, Geschichte oder Geografie.

Geplant sind:

• Vorträge (20 Minuten + 10 Minuten Diskussion)

• Posterpräsentationen für den wissenschaftlichen Nachwuchs

Abstracts (max. 300 Wörter inkl. Literatur) können bis zum 23. Januar 2026 per E-Mail an
📧 onodig26@uni-bremen.de eingereicht werden.

Conférence SFO "Les thalassonymes dans l’archipel d’Ouessant"

 Société française d’onomastique

Lundi 19 janvier 2026 – 17h

 

Conférence

(accessible en visio)

 

« Les thalassonymes dans l’archipel d’Ouessant :

usages et jeux de pouvoirs »

par Victor Hamelin,

université de Genève – chaire UNESCO “Dénommer le monde”

 

 

Comment nommer un espace en mouvement constant comme le milieu maritime, où pratiques nautiques et regards situés recomposent sans cesse les contours et les significations de ce qui fait lieu ? Au gré des marées et des usages, la toponymie nautique et littorale révèle un palimpseste de noms qui apparaissent, s’effacent ou se transforment au fil de l’eau. 

Dans cet environnement, où la microtoponymie échappe aux cadres d’adressage institutionnels, plusieurs corpus toponymiques se superposent et reflètent donc les différentes manières de s’approprier l’espace côtier. 

À partir d’un travail mené sur l’archipel d’Ouessant, dans le cadre d’un mémoire de recherche, cette conférence montre comment les eaux ouessantines et leurs toponymes témoignent des tensions entre efficacité cartographique, standardisation linguistique et reconnaissance des savoirs locaux.

 

Archives nationales, site de Paris
CARAN – salle suspendue
11 rue des Quatre-Fils
75003 Paris

 

Accès libre et gratuit

 

Cliquer ici pour rejoindre la réunion

 

 

 

https://www.sfo-onomastique.fr/conference/conference-les-thalassonymes-dans-larchipel-douessant-usages-et-jeux-de-pouvoirs-19-janvier-2026/

Apply for the ICOS Summer School until 31 January 2026 and be part of the future of name studies

ICOS Summer School 2026: Digital Tools and Databases in Onomastics

The International Council of Onomastic Sciences (ICOS) will host its third Summer School in Helsinki, Finland, from 24 to 28 August 2026, bringing together a new generation of onomastic scholars for an intensive, forward-looking week of training, exchange, and collaboration. This year’s theme, “Digital tools and databases,” reflects the profound transformation that digital methods, large datasets, and AI are bringing to the study of names.

Designed primarily for PhD students (with motivated Master’s students also welcome), the Summer School offers a rare opportunity to learn from leading international experts while working hands-on with contemporary onomastic data. Participation is exclusive to ICOS members, and the programme is hybrid, with up to 25 on-site and 25 online participants. Thanks to support from ICOS and the University of Helsinki, the course has no participation fee, and all attendees will receive a diploma and a recommendation for 5 ECTS credits (to be validated by their home universities).

A week where names meet data

The programme opens on Monday, 24 August, with an orientation day that immediately immerses students in how traditional fieldwork and observation connect to digital research. Terhi Ainiala introduces how interviews and observations can be transformed into onomastic data, followed by Leena Kolehmainen, who explores how multilingual cemetery landscapes move from visual reality to structured digital databases. Group activities then help participants get to know one another and build a collaborative learning environment.

On Tuesday, the focus shifts squarely to data. A dedicated session on research data management is followed by lectures on working with imperfect historical name data (Minna Nevala), the challenges of digital tools in minority-language onomastics with a focus on Saami (Taarna Valtonen), and the role of generative AI in higher education (Kalle Juuti). The day concludes with an onomastics-themed city walk, turning Helsinki itself into a living dataset.

Wednesday is devoted to presentation workshops, giving participants the chance to practice not only presenting their own research but also chairing sessions - key academic skills rarely taught formally. A recreational outing in the afternoon adds an important social dimension to the academic programme.

On Thursday, lectures highlight the breadth of digital onomastics: from place names in Helsinki literature (Lieven Ameel) to names in the video game Alan Wake II (Lasse Hämäläinen & Milla Juhonen), from street-name ideologies visualised over time and space (Isabelle Buchstaller & Seraphim Alvanides) to online and offline linguistic landscapes (Väinö Syrjälä). An excursion to the Institute of the Languages of Finland rounds out the day.

The week culminates on Friday with a fully hands-on focus: working with the digital Names Archive (Jaakko Raunamaa), exploring onomastic terminology via the Helsinki Term Bank (Harri Kettunen), and discussing the opportunities and challenges of automatic pseudonymisation (Therese Lindström Tiedemann & Lisa Södergård). The closing discussion ties together methods, ethics, and future directions for digital name research.

Apply and be part of the future of name studies

Applications for the ICOS Summer School 2026 will be open 12–31 January 2026, with results announced by 13 February. With only 50 places available in total, early and well-prepared applications are strongly encouraged. Questions can be directed to the course organizer Milla Juhonen at the University of Helsinki.

For anyone working with names in a digital age - from databases and GIS to AI and visualisation - the ICOS Summer School 2026 promises to be a landmark event, combining cutting-edge methods with the collegial spirit that defines the global onomastics community.

The application form for the ICOS Summer School 2026 is now open. You can access it via the following link: https://elomake.helsinki.fi/lomakkeet/138447/lomake.html

Applications can be submitted until 31 January 2026. Applicants will be informed of the results by 13 February 2026.

 

For further information, please contact Milla Juhonen (milla.juhonen@helsinki.fi).

Twenty Years of Participatory Toponymic Mapping in the Andes (2005–2025)

 When Places Speak: Indigenous Toponymy in the Bolivian Andes

In early January 2026, scholars, practitioners, and Indigenous knowledge holders gathered in the Atacama Desert at the V Escuela de Verano in San Pedro de Atacama for an unforgettable encounter of cross-cultural knowledge systems. Among the presenters was Dr. Elvira Serrano, who, alongside her colleague, shared two decades of collaborative work with Quechua and Aymara community members in the highlands of Bolivia - a journey that radically reshapes how we think about place names and landscape.

Their talk, titled “Toponymical maps – documenting ancestral knowledge in the Bolivian Andes,” did more than describe map-making: it brought to life a worldview where landscapes speak, and human naming is not a one-way act of designation but a form of dialogue with place. In Indigenous Andean cosmologies, a mountain is not an inert object on a grid; it is an active being with agency, memory, and presence. Lakes have emotions, fields walk, and places reveal their own names to those who listen. This deeply relational perspective situates place names not as labels but as living cultural and ecological relationships rooted in centuries of observation, ritual, and reciprocal care.

Toponymy That Matters: Culture, Rights, and Governance

Documenting and mapping these place names is far more than a linguistic exercise. It is tightly linked to contemporary struggles for environmental governance, land and water rights, and cultural survival. By recording Indigenous toponyms together with their meanings and stories, Serrano and collaborators create tools that affirm community histories and territorial claims, support ecological understanding, and strengthen collective identity. In the Andes, toponyms encapsulate ecosystem knowledge - embodying ecological functions, seasonal rhythms, and historical events that scientific maps often overlook. Such Indigenous place names have been shown to reflect integrated human–environment relationships that differ sharply from Western cartographic traditions, in which nature and culture are often separated.

This approach echoes earlier scholarly work demonstrating how Andean place names integrate linguistic, cultural, and ecological information, not just spatial coordinates. In Bolivia, research has shown that Indigenous place names - created through communal interaction with the landscape - encode environmental knowledge, geodiversity, and social history, which can serve both academic understanding and community-based land management strategies.

Ethics and Participation: Who Owns the Map?

Central to this work is a commitment to ethical research practice. Mapping Indigenous place names must not reproduce colonial patterns of extraction or academic appropriation. Rather than simply collecting place names for external use, Serrano and her collaborators engage communities in long-term dialogues about who retains access to the data, how it is stored, and how it is returned to the people whose knowledge it embodies. The aim is not external publication alone, but community empowerment - supporting decisions about their own territories according to locally defined priorities.

This ethical stance aligns with broader discussions in Indigenous geography and critical toponymy, which emphasize community control over spatial narratives and resist the imposition of external categories on Indigenous landscapes.

Beyond the Map: Landscape as kin, not object

In the Andean Indigenous worldview shared at the event, places are at once culture and nature - defying the very division that underpins most Western academic disciplines. Mountains protect, lakes communicate, fields change and move - in an ongoing exchange with human actors who are themselves shaped by ritual, memory, and reciprocal responsibility.

The concept that “places reveal their names to people” disrupts the assumption that humans impose meaning on a silent landscape. Instead it positions place names as dialogues emerging from lived experience and reciprocal presence. This resonates with in-depth ethnographic perspectives that treat Indigenous toponyms as ecosystem concepts, highlighting how naming reflects ecological integration and a personalized sense of place.

Looking Forward: INDAGAR and the Future of Applied Toponymy

This work is part of a broader research initiative - the Indigenous Agroecological Territories (INDAGAR) project — which seeks to link Indigenous territorial knowledge with agroecological governance and sustainability. Although much of this project’s focus centers on food systems and environmental resilience, its inclusion of Indigenous place names highlights the central role of spatial knowledge in community-led ecological stewardship.

As the field of toponymy evolves, contributions like those presented in the desert of Atacama remind us that place names are not static keys to a past world, but living inscriptions of heritage, identity, and ecological practice. When places speak, they tell histories that official maps have long ignored — and in doing so, they empower the people whose ancestral ties to land continue to shape cultural and environmental futures.