The Man Who Tried to Become a Purple Emperor: Inside China's Wildest Renaming Saga

 In January 2025, a young man in China walked out of a police station with a new legal name: 朱雀玄武敕令 - roughly, "Edict of the Vermilion Bird and Black Tortoise." It was already his second self-reinvention in eight months. It would not be his last attempt. Over the next year, he'd file eleven name-change applications, try to become "Purple Emperor of the Heavens," attempt a 48-character name, and - in a twist that felt almost too on-the-nose - try to rename himself after George Washington.

By the time Chinese police finally drew a hard line, the story had become a genuine viral moment: equal parts internet comedy, legal case study, and uncomfortable mirror held up to a bureaucracy built for a world where nobody wanted to be a mythological deity.

From Zhu Yunfei to the Vermilion Bird

The man's original name was ordinary: 朱云飞 (Zhu Yunfei), born in 2001. He didn't like it. In May 2024 he successfully changed it to 朱雀玄武 (Zhu Que Xuan Wu) — "Vermilion Bird, Black Tortoise," two of the four mythical guardian beasts of Chinese cosmology (Tencent News, April 2025). That should have been dramatic enough for most people. It wasn't enough for him. In January 2025 he escalated to 朱雀玄武敕令 - appending 敕令 ("edict" or "imperial decree"), the kind of phrase you'd expect stamped on a Taoist talisman, not a Chinese national ID card (The Beijing News, April 2025). 

Then, on April 16, 2025, he applied to become 周天紫薇大帝 - "Purple Emperor of the Heavens" (a real deity in Chinese folk religion, associated with the North Star). Police rejected it. Eleven days later, undeterred, he submitted an application for a 48-character name. That, too, was denied (The Beijing News). By the time reporters caught up with the story, he'd racked up eleven name-change applications in thirteen months (Tencent News, July 2025) - including, according to later reporting, an attempt to become "周乔治华盛顿" - "Zhou George Washington" (Tencent News, May 2025).

The Internet Reacts

Naturally, this did not stay quiet. Screenshots of his ID card - genuinely printed with "朱雀玄武敕令" - circulated widely online. Some commenters joked it looked like someone who'd played too much Honor of Kings; others said it read like a cultivation novel (修仙小说) come to life, joking he'd "ascended in place" (Tencent News, April 2025).

It's easy to see why it landed. China's xianxia and cultivation-fantasy genres - full of immortals, celestial titles, and mystical edicts - are enormously popular, and here was someone seemingly trying to live the genre through the driest possible bureaucratic channel: a household registration office.

The Legal Question Nobody Had Fully Answered

Here's what makes this more than a meme: China's Civil Code genuinely does protect the right to change your name. Article 1012 of the Civil Code states that natural persons enjoy the right to name themselves - to decide, use, change, or license the use of their own name - with one condition: it must not violate 公序良俗 (public order and good morals) (Tencent News). Article 1015 adds that, with a few exceptions, citizens should generally take their father's or mother's surname - meaning you can't just invent a new surname on a whim (Tencent News).

So which was it - a citizen exercising a genuine legal right, or someone abusing it? Legal commentators leaned toward the latter. Beijing lawyer Huang Xiaoyu noted that Chinese name-related law is scattered across multiple statutes - the Civil Code, the Resident ID Card Law, the National Common Language and Script Law, and household-registration regulations - and that none of them grant an unlimited right to rename yourself as often or as fancifully as you like (The Beijing News).

Senior partner Ma Lihong was more direct: she argued his pattern - eleven applications in thirteen months, several for overtly bizarre names - met the legal definition of "abuse of rights" (滥用权利) under Article 132 of the Civil Code, which bars exercising a civil right in a way that damages state or public interest. In her reading, the repeated applications wasted administrative resources, undermined the seriousness of the household-registration system, and risked a copycat effect (Tencent News, July 2025). Commentary from The Paper (澎湃新闻) and The Beijing News took a similar line: this had stopped being about personal identity and become, in effect, a stunt performed through the vehicle of a real legal right - even though the man himself insisted, when interviewed, that he wasn't doing it for attention, just out of personal "hobby" (爱好) (The Beijing News).

Why Police Said No

Police ultimately rejected his later applications on public-order-and-morals grounds, and the case became a small case study in how much discretion Chinese household-registration officers actually hold. As one write-up summarized the reasoning: a citizen genuinely has the right to a name, but that right has boundaries — it can't be used to evade legal or financial obligations, it can't include vulgar or misleading content, and it can't be exercised so repetitively that it disrupts registration order (Sohu/163 legal explainer, via Tencent News).

Coverage also drew a cross-strait comparison to Taiwan's 2021 "salmon chaos" (鮭魚之亂), when hundreds of people legally changed their names to include "鮭魚" (salmon) to claim a sushi restaurant's promotional freebie - a much lighter-hearted precedent for mass, whimsical legal renaming in a Chinese-speaking society (Tencent News).

The Bigger Picture: A Law That Was Never Actually Finished

The case landed at an oddly fitting moment, because China still doesn't have a dedicated, fully enacted naming law. Back in 2007, the Ministry of Public Security drafted a standalone "Regulations on Name Registration" (姓名登记条例，初稿) - it would have set given names at 2–6 characters, banned invented characters, foreign scripts, and Pinyin letters in legal names, and, notably, allowed children to combine both parents' surnames into new "double surnames." It was circulated to police bureaus nationwide for training purposes - and then quietly never formally issued (Oriental Lawyers Network; Peking University Law School commentary).

Nearly two decades later, name changes in China are still governed by that same scattered patchwork of Civil Code articles and household-registration rules the draft was meant to replace - which is exactly the ambiguity this case exposed. Local enforcement varies too: a Weinan city police Q&A in March 2025 clarified there's no formal legal cap on the number of times someone can change their name, even though in practice repeated or poorly justified requests get turned down (Sina Finance).

The Takeaway

Strip away the mythological flourish and the "Purple Emperor" comedy, and this is really a story about the gap between a right written broadly on paper (you may change your name) and a right applied narrowly in practice (but not like that, and not that often). China's Civil Code gave one young man a real legal lever to reinvent himself as often as he liked — and a household registration officer, backstopped by "public order and good morals," decided eleven times in thirteen months was exactly ten times too many.

Somewhere out there, a Chinese national ID card still reads 朱雀玄武敕令 - a permanent, government-laminated reminder that even in a system this bureaucratic, myth occasionally slips through the cracks. Just not George Washington.

---

Sources:

• "男子改48字名被拒" — The Beijing News, April 29, 2025
• "男子申请改名'周天紫薇大帝'被拒" — Tencent News, April 27, 2025
• "'朱雀玄武敕令'13个月11次申请改名" — Tencent News, July 1, 2025
• "'朱雀玄武敕令'欲改名'周乔治华盛顿'" — Tencent News, May 16, 2025
• "姓名是否只能改一次？多地回应" — Sina Finance, May 3, 2026
• "《姓名登记条例（初稿）》研究起草完成" — Oriental Lawyers Network
• "赵冉：《姓名登记条例(初稿)》对姓名过渡干涉" — Peking University Law School

CfP: Medieval Onomastics at the International Medieval Congress 2027

5–8 July 2027 | University of Leeds, UK & Online
Abstract deadline: 15 September 2026

Medievalists working with personal names, place-names, naming practices, identity, language, or communities are invited to submit proposals for the returning Medieval Onomastics panel at the International Medieval Congress (IMC) 2027 in Leeds.

Sponsored by the Institute for Name-Studies (INS), University of Nottingham, the session is being organised by Tristan Alphey and Rachel Maloney. The call welcomes 20-minute papers dealing with names and naming anywhere in the medieval world, without restriction to a particular geographical area. Both anthroponymy and toponymy are explicitly included. The call has also been published by the American Name Society.

Medieval names and “Communities”

The special thematic strand of the 2027 International Medieval Congress is “Communities”, making onomastics particularly well suited to the congress theme. Names can reveal how medieval communities identified themselves and others, constructed boundaries, preserved memories, marked belonging, negotiated migration, or expressed linguistic, ethnic, religious, occupational, and social affiliations.

The official IMC call highlights such subjects as linguistic markers of communities, multilingualism, migration, spaces and places, inclusion and exclusion, collective identity, belonging, commemoration, and origin traditions. All of these offer obvious possibilities for onomastic investigation.

Possible contributions might therefore examine, among many other subjects:

• personal names as indicators of ethnic, linguistic, religious, or social affiliation;
• naming patterns within urban, rural, monastic, mercantile, aristocratic, or migrant communities;
• surnames, bynames, nicknames, and occupational names as expressions of social identity;
• the relationship between place-names and settlement communities;
• naming and renaming following conquest, migration, conversion, or political change;
• multilingual naming environments and language contact;
• names as evidence for inclusion, exclusion, or perceptions of outsiders;
• commemoration and collective memory through names;
• gender and naming practices;
• networks reconstructed through anthroponymic evidence;
• names in chronicles, charters, tax records, cartularies, literary texts, or inscriptions;
• digital and quantitative approaches to medieval name corpora.

The scope is nevertheless deliberately broad: a paper does not have to address the “Communities” theme directly. The organisers welcome work on the role of names and naming in the medieval period from any geographical region.

A continuing place for onomastics at Leeds

The 2027 call continues a striking recent presence of onomastics at the Leeds congress. In 2024, the programme included no fewer than three linked sessions under the heading Onomastics: Crisis or Stasis?, sponsored by the Institute for Name-Studies at Nottingham. Papers ranged from the naming of newcomers in late medieval England to personal names and regional identity in the Icelandic sagas.

A dedicated Medieval Onomastics session followed in 2025. Its papers dealt with subjects as diverse as naming in Gamelyn, associative naming in Lombard Italy, surnames and ethnic identity among merchants in medieval Mazovia, and Old English personal-name vocabulary.

The momentum continued at IMC 2026 with the round table “Medieval Onomastics in Britain: Looking Forward”, organised by Tristan Alphey and bringing together specialists including Jayne Carroll, James Chetwood, Chris Lewis, and Peter McClure to discuss both the achievements and future challenges of the discipline.

The forthcoming 2027 panel therefore forms part of a developing series rather than an isolated session, helping to establish medieval name studies as an increasingly visible component of the world's largest annual gathering of medievalists.

About the Institute for Name-Studies

The Institute for Name-Studies at the University of Nottingham is one of the principal centres for academic onomastic research in Britain. It brings together work on both personal and place-names and also houses the offices and collections of the English Place-Name Society. Its research uses name evidence to investigate questions of language, landscape, settlement, society, and historical change.

Submission details

Prospective speakers should submit:

an abstract of no more than 200 words, together with
a short biography including academic affiliation and contact details.

Submissions should be sent to:

Tristan Alphey tristan.alphey@gmail.com

Deadline: 15 September 2026

Organisers: Tristan Alphey and Rachel Maloney
Sponsor: Institute for Name-Studies, University of Nottingham

The panel-specific deadline should not be confused with the general IMC deadline for independently submitted individual papers, which is 31 August 2026. IMC session proposals have a later deadline of 30 September 2026. The Medieval Onomastics call is a separate call through the session organisers and explicitly gives 15 September as its submission deadline.

International Medieval Congress 2027

The International Medieval Congress 2027 will take place at the University of Leeds from Monday 5 to Thursday 8 July 2027. It will again be a fully hybrid congress, allowing both in-person and virtual participation. The IMC regularly brings together scholars from more than 60 countries and describes itself as Europe's largest forum for medieval studies.

For onomasticians, the 2027 theme offers an especially productive question: what can names tell us about the communities of the medieval world — and what can communities tell us about the names people chose, inherited, imposed, remembered, and transformed?

With its unusually broad geographical scope and openness to both personal and place-name research, this call offers an excellent opportunity for onomasticians, historical linguists, medieval historians, philologists, geographers, genealogists, and scholars working with documentary or digital data to bring names to the centre of the study of medieval communities.

Official IMC 2027 Call for Papers
Institute for Name-Studies, University of Nottingham

American Name Society: Medieval Onomastics CfP 

Lake Ontario or “Lake America”? A Toponymic Reading of Trump’s Naming Wars

Donald Trump’s suggestion that Lake Ontario could be renamed “Lake America” is not just a passing political provocation. It belongs to a larger pattern in which geographical names become instruments of symbolic power, national assertion, media conflict, and diplomatic pressure. According to AP and ABC News, Trump said the United States was giving “serious consideration” to renaming Lake Ontario, after already promoting the federal U.S. name “Gulf of America” for the Gulf of Mexico.

From a toponymic point of view, the proposal is striking because Lake Ontario is not an internal American feature. It is a shared Great Lake, forming part of the border region between the United States and Canada. ABC notes that New York and Ontario govern their respective portions of lakebed and shoreline, while the lake is also managed through binational frameworks such as the International Joint Commission and the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement.

1. The name “Ontario” is older than the modern border

The first important point is historical. The name Ontario does not originate as a modern provincial or national label. It belongs to an older Indigenous hydronymic layer. AP derives the lake name from Huron oniatarí:io, glossed as “lake of shining waters,” while a Canadian government source explains Ontario from Iroquois kanadario, meaning “eau miroitante,” or “shimmering water.” The precise linguistic form may vary between traditions and sources, but the deeper point is clear: Ontario is an Indigenous-derived water name, not a U.S. or Canadian nationalist invention.

That matters because renaming it “Lake America” would not simply replace one neutral label with another. It would overwrite an older hydronym connected to Indigenous linguistic memory with a modern geopolitical slogan. In that sense, the proposal would be an act of toponymic re-nationalisation: a shared, historically layered name would be reframed through the political vocabulary of one state.

2. Canada’s official neutral position: Lake Ontario / Lac Ontario

For Canadian official usage, the matter is straightforward. The Canadian Geographical Names Database records both Lake Ontario and Lac Ontario as official names. The French-language database states that the official data come from the federal, provincial, and territorial naming authorities of the Commission de toponymie du Canada; the entry gives Lac Ontario / Lake Ontario with official status.

The English-language Canadian database likewise records Lake Ontario as official, with a decision date of 18 February 1994 and the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry as the naming authority source.

This is important for a neutral formulation: Canada has not renamed the lake, and the official Canadian forms remain Lake Ontario and Lac Ontario.

3. The French-Canadian dimension

The French-speaking Canadian reaction is especially relevant because the conflict is not only about geography. It is also about language, sovereignty, and cultural recognition.

French-language Canadian media reported the proposal as Trump wanting to rename le lac Ontario as “lac de l’Amérique” or “lac America”, and framed the question as whether such a change would actually be possible. Montréal station 98.5 discussed the issue with geographer Yann Roche of UQAM, asking precisely whether a U.S. president could impose such a change.

Another French-language Canadian report quoted Canadian minister Mélanie Joly as saying that Canada would always call it “lac Ontario”. The same article explicitly connected the proposed Lake Ontario change with the earlier U.S. move to rename the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America.

This French-Canadian layer is not accidental. At the same time, Prime Minister Mark Carney stated in both English and French that Canada was not prepared to compromise its sovereignty, including the protection of the French language and Canadian culture, in trade negotiations with the United States.

ABC also reported that Trump denied wanting to interfere with French-speaking Canadians, while Carney clarified that the dispute concerned U.S. objections to issues such as Quebec language and cultural-protection laws, including French content and bilingual labelling.

So, for Canada, this is not merely a lake-name issue. It touches a broader symbolic field: Who controls the public language of space? Who decides which names appear on maps, labels, platforms, and official documents?

4. The Gulf of Mexico precedent

The Lake Ontario proposal must be read together with the earlier Gulf of Mexico / Gulf of America dispute. The U.S. Department of the Interior stated that, following Trump’s executive order, the Gulf of Mexico would be officially known in U.S. federal usage as the Gulf of America, and that the federal geographic names system would be updated accordingly.

But this kind of change has limited jurisdiction. AP explained that Trump’s Gulf order carries authority within the United States, but Mexico, other countries, and international bodies do not have to recognize it. AP therefore continued to use Gulf of Mexico for global clarity, while acknowledging the new U.S. federal name.

Mexico resisted the change strongly. AP reported that Mexico considered legal action against Google over the display of Gulf of America, arguing that Trump’s order could apply only to the U.S. continental shelf and not to Mexican territorial waters. Google Maps reportedly showed different labels depending on user location: Gulf of America in the United States, Gulf of Mexico in Mexico, and a mixed form elsewhere.

This is the new geography of toponymic conflict: not only treaties, atlases, and schoolbooks, but also search engines, digital maps, federal databases, news stylebooks, and platform geolocation settings.

5. A unilateral name is not the same as an international name

The United States does have mechanisms for standardizing names in its own federal usage. The U.S. Geological Survey describes the Geographic Names Information System as the federal repository of official geographic names, while the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency describes its foreign names database as a source of standard spellings sanctioned by the U.S. Board on Geographic Names for federal use.

But shared and international features are different. A U.S. federal name can create a domestic official usage; it cannot automatically create a Canadian, Mexican, United Nations, International Hydrographic Organization, or global scholarly usage. AP makes this distinction clearly in the Lake Ontario case: Trump may have broad power over U.S. government recognition of geographic names, but he cannot force Canada or individuals to follow.

This is why “Lake America” would not truly rename Lake Ontario in the full international sense. It would create a unilateral American exonym for a shared water body.

6. “America” as a contested name

The choice of America is itself politically loaded. In U.S. English, “America” is commonly used as a synonym for the United States. But in many other linguistic and political traditions, America refers to a wider continental space: North America, South America, or the Americas as a whole.

This makes “Lake America” different from a simple patriotic name. It uses a continental term to mark a feature shared with Canada as if it symbolically belonged to the United States. For Canadians and Mexicans, the problem is not only that the name is new. The problem is that it appropriates a broader geographic term and narrows it into a U.S.-national frame.

In this sense, “Lake America” and “Gulf of America” are examples of exonymic expansion: the naming authority of one state is projected outward onto spaces that are historically, geographically, or politically shared.

7. Mexico, Canada, and the politics of resistance

Mexico’s resistance to Gulf of America and Canada’s resistance to Lake America show two versions of the same phenomenon.

Mexico’s response emphasized territorial jurisdiction: the United States cannot rename Mexican waters. Canada’s response emphasizes sovereignty, bilingualism, and the stability of official names: Canada will continue to say Lake Ontario / Lac Ontario.

The Canadian case adds another layer because of French. When U.S. trade pressure is linked, directly or indirectly, to Quebec language laws or French cultural visibility, then the naming of a lake becomes part of a wider politics of linguistic sovereignty. Carney’s French statement that Canada would not compromise on sovereignty, French language, or culture makes that connection explicit from the Canadian side.

8. De-Indigenization and symbolic replacement

There is also an Indigenous dimension. Lake Ontario’s name points back to an Indigenous linguistic source. Replacing it with “Lake America” would not simply Americanize a Canadian-American water body. It would also erase, or at least overshadow, an older Indigenous-derived hydronym.

This resembles a broader tension in North American toponymy. Some recent naming debates have restored Indigenous names or recognized Indigenous traditions, as in the Denali / Mount McKinley debate. AP notes that Denali had been changed federally in 2015 to reflect Alaska Native traditions and the preference of many Alaska residents, before Trump moved to restore Mount McKinley in federal usage.

Thus, the same political programme that promotes “America” in place of older or internationally established names also tends to reopen older conflicts between colonial, Indigenous, national, and local naming systems.

9. Toward a concept: asymmetrical toponymic sovereignty

The Lake Ontario case can be described as asymmetrical toponymic sovereignty.

The United States cannot legally force Canada, Mexico, the United Nations, or international scholarly usage to adopt its preferred names. But it can use its administrative power, media weight, platform influence, and symbolic dominance to create competing realities.

That is what makes the conflict asymmetrical. Canada and Mexico can say no, but U.S. usage may still appear in federal databases, American maps, search engines, headlines, and political speeches. The name becomes a tool of pressure even without international recognition.

Conclusion: Lake Ontario as a test case

The proposed renaming of Lake Ontario is not a minor naming joke. It is a test case in the politics of twenty-first-century toponymy.

At stake are several questions:

Who has the right to name a shared place?
Can a national government rename an international water body for its own purposes?
What happens when digital platforms adopt one state’s terminology?
How do older Indigenous names survive nationalist renaming projects?
And how do Canada, Mexico, Quebec, Indigenous communities, journalists, and international bodies resist toponymic pressure?

For now, the neutral and internationally responsible formulation remains: Lake Ontario, in French Lac Ontario. “Lake America” would be a unilateral U.S. political exonym, not a generally recognized replacement.

The deeper issue is not the lake alone. It is the emerging struggle over the symbolic ownership of geography. In that struggle, names are not decorative labels. They are claims.

References

Barrow, B., Householder, M., & Gillies, R. (2026, August 25). Trump mulls renaming Lake Ontario as “Lake America.” Canadians balk at the idea. AP News.

Murray, I. (2026, August 25). Trump floats renaming Lake Ontario to “Lake America,” denies claim he’d interfere with Canadians speaking French. ABC News.

Jackson, K. (2026, August 25). Lake America? Trump mulls renaming Lake Ontario, expresses love for French Canadians amid trade war. Reuters.

Natural Resources Canada. (n.d.). Place names: Lake Ontario. Canadian Geographical Names Database.

U.S. Geological Survey. (n.d.). U.S. Board on Geographic Names.

Barrett, A. (2025, January 23). AP style guidance on Gulf of Mexico, Mount McKinley. The Associated Press.

Ressources naturelles Canada. (2021, 16 février). Noms de lieux : Lac Ontario / Lake Ontario. Base de données toponymiques du Canada.

Gouvernement du Canada. (n.d.). Les symboles provinciaux de l’Ontario. Canada.ca.

Cabinet du premier ministre du Canada. (2026, 22 août). Le premier ministre Carney prononce une allocution sur les négociations commerciales avec les États-Unis.

98.5 Montréal. (2026, 25 août). Trump veut renommer le lac Ontario en « lac de l’Amérique ».

Agence QMI. (2026, 25 août). Nouvelle attaque envers le Canada : Donald Trump affirme vouloir rebaptiser le lac Ontario. 24 heures. 

Hrachya Acharyan at 150: Yerevan Conference to Revisit a Founding Figure of Armenian Linguistics

 From 8 to 10 October 2026, Yerevan State University will host an international conference dedicated to the 150th anniversary of Hrachya Acharyan (1876–1953), one of the foundational figures of modern Armenian linguistics and Armenian studies.

Organised by the Faculty of Philology of Yerevan State University in cooperation with the Armenian Language Research Laboratory, the conference will bring together scholars working on Acharyan’s intellectual legacy and on the many fields to which he contributed: the history of Armenian, historical-comparative linguistics, etymology, lexicography, dialectology, manuscript studies, literature, folklore, Oriental studies, diaspora communities, and - of particular importance for readers of this blog -onomastics and historical toponymy.

Although the abstract deadline has now passed, the event remains one of the major Armenian linguistic gatherings of 2026. It is not only a commemorative conference, but also an opportunity to reassess Acharyan’s scholarship from the perspective of contemporary linguistics. His work belongs to a period in which Armenian studies were being systematised through historical grammar, etymological research, dialect documentation, lexicography, and the careful study of names.

For onomasticians, Acharyan’s anniversary is especially significant. Armenian names - personal names, place names, ethnonyms, historical forms, dialectal variants, and names preserved in manuscripts - are deeply connected with language history, cultural memory, migration, and regional identity. Historical toponymy, in particular, offers a bridge between philology and geography: it helps reconstruct settlement history, language contact, political change, sacred landscapes, and the cultural memory of Armenian communities across different regions.

The conference programme is expected to include invited lectures by leading specialists, papers from members of the Armenian Language Research Laboratory, and selected contributions from submitted proposals. The organisers also plan to bring the results of this conference together with related Acharyan-anniversary events in Paris and Los Angeles in an English-language collective volume in 2027. This planned publication promises to make the anniversary not merely a ceremonial occasion, but a point of departure for new research.

The broader context is also noteworthy. The 150th anniversary of Hrachya Acharyan has been included in UNESCO’s calendar of anniversaries of eminent personalities and important events for the 2026–2027 cycle. In Armenia, the anniversary has also been marked by public commemorative initiatives, including a collector coin dedicated to Acharyan’s birth anniversary. These gestures underline the exceptional status of Acharyan not only as a linguist, but also as a figure of national cultural memory.

The Yerevan conference therefore invites us to look again at a scholar whose work still speaks to many branches of Armenian studies. For name scholars, it is a reminder that onomastics is never isolated from the wider history of language. Names preserve linguistic strata, historical contacts, religious traditions, regional identities, and the movement of communities through time.

In celebrating Hrachya Acharyan, the conference also celebrates the enduring importance of philology: the patient work of reading, comparing, classifying, interpreting, and preserving the words - and names - through which a culture remembers itself.

Event: International Conference Dedicated to the 150th Anniversary of Hrachya Acharyan
Dates: 8–10 October 2026
Venue: Yerevan State University
Organisers: Faculty of Philology, Yerevan State University; Armenian Language Research Laboratory
Focus: Armenian linguistics, philology, etymology, dialectology, lexicography, onomastics and historical toponymy

In Memoriam: Professor Maria Malec (1928–2026)

 The Polish and international onomastic community mourns the passing of Professor Maria Malec, one of the most distinguished scholars of Polish names and naming.

Professor Malec died on 21 August 2026, at the age of 98. For decades she was associated with the Institute of the Polish Language of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Kraków, where her work helped shape one of the most important centres of Slavic onomastic research.

Born on 29 January 1928 in Rzeszotary, Maria Malec studied Polish philology at the Jagiellonian University in Kraków from 1948 to 1952. Among her teachers were some of the great names of Polish philology, including Kazimierz Nitsch, Zenon Klemensiewicz, Tadeusz Milewski, and above all Witold Taszycki, who became her mentor in onomastic research.

Her scholarly life was closely connected with the Kraków school of onomastics. After completing her studies, she first worked on the Dictionary of Sixteenth-Century Polish and then joined the team preparing the monumental Dictionary of Old Polish Personal Names (Słownik staropolskich nazw osobowych). This work became one of the foundational achievements of Polish anthroponomastics, and Professor Malec was one of its key co-creators. From 1971 to 1992 she headed the Anthroponymic Workshop of the Institute of the Polish Language.

Her own monographs became classics of Polish name studies. Among the most important are Budowa morfologiczna staropolskich złożonych imion osobowych (1971), devoted to the morphological structure of Old Polish compound personal names; Staropolskie skrócone nazwy osobowe od imion dwuczłonowych (1982), on shortened personal names derived from dithematic names; and Imiona chrześcijańskie w średniowiecznej Polsce (1994), a major study of Christian names in medieval Poland.

Although anthroponymy was at the centre of her scholarship, her work reached beyond personal names. Her Słownik etymologiczny nazw geograficznych Polski (2003) showed her command of toponymy and her ability to explain geographical names in a way that was philologically careful and accessible to a wider readership. The dictionary did not limit itself to settlement names, but also included names of regions, rivers, lakes, mountains, urban places, and microtoponyms.

Professor Malec also contributed to major collective works, including the Słownik etymologiczno-motywacyjny staropolskich nazw osobowych, for which she prepared the part devoted to personal names of Christian origin. Her bibliography extends over many decades, from the early 1950s to the twenty-first century, and includes monographs, dictionary work, articles, reviews, conference papers, and editorial work. Later notices describe her output as exceeding two hundred publications.

Her institutional service was equally important. She was connected for many years with the Towarzystwo Miłośników Języka Polskiego, serving as secretary of its Main Board from 1991 to 2004 and later becoming an honorary member. She also served on the editorial committee of Język Polski and was long associated with Onomastica, first as a member of the editorial committee and later as a member of its Scientific Council.

Yet those who remember Professor Malec speak not only of her scholarship, but also of her character. She is remembered as a scholar of exceptional diligence, precision, and wisdom, but also as a person of modesty, kindness, patience, and generosity. She shared her knowledge without superiority and supported younger scholars with quiet encouragement.

Professor Maria Malec belonged to the generation that built Polish onomastics after the Second World War and gave it international scholarly authority. Her work on Old Polish personal names, Christian naming, word formation, anthroponymic lexicography, and geographical names remains part of the permanent foundation of Slavic name studies.

Her books and dictionaries will continue to be consulted. Her methodological care will continue to guide scholars. Her name will remain inseparable from the history of Polish onomastics.

May her memory be honoured.

Zmarła Profesor Maria Malec, jedna z najwybitniejszych postaci polskiej onomastyki, badaczka historii polskiego imiennictwa, współtwórczyni fundamentalnych słowników antroponimicznych i uczona przez dziesięciolecia związana z krakowskim środowiskiem językoznawczym Polskiej Akademii Nauk.

Profesor Maria Malec odeszła 21 sierpnia 2026 roku, w wieku 98 lat. Dla polskiej onomastyki jest to strata szczególna, ponieważ Jej dorobek należy do samego fundamentu badań nad dawnymi nazwami osobowymi, imionami chrześcijańskimi, strukturą staropolskiego systemu antroponimicznego oraz historią nazw własnych w kulturze polskiej.

Urodziła się 29 stycznia 1928 roku w Rzeszotarach. W latach 1948–1952 studiowała filologię polską na Uniwersytecie Jagiellońskim. Jej formację naukową kształtowali wybitni uczeni polskiej humanistyki, m.in. Juliusz Kleiner, Stanisław Pigoń, Kazimierz Nitsch, Tadeusz Milewski, Zenon Klemensiewicz oraz Witold Taszycki — Jej przyszły mistrz i jeden z twórców nowoczesnej polskiej onomastyki.

Po ukończeniu studiów rozpoczęła pracę leksykograficzną, najpierw w zespole opracowującym Słownik polszczyzny XVI wieku, a następnie przy wielkim przedsięwzięciu, które na trwałe związało Jej nazwisko z historią polskiej nauki: Słowniku staropolskich nazw osobowych. Profesor Maria Malec należała do pokolenia uczonych, które współtworzyło krakowską szkołę onomastyczną i nadało polskim badaniom nad nazwami osobowymi wysoki poziom metodologiczny, materiałowy i edytorski.

W latach 1971–1992 kierowała Pracownią Antroponimiczną Instytutu Języka Polskiego PAN. To właśnie tam rozwijano prace nad historyczną antroponimią polską, dokumentacją dawnych nazw osobowych, ich strukturą słowotwórczą, motywacją, wariantywnością i miejscem w kulturze. Trudno mówić o rozwoju polskiej antroponomastyki drugiej połowy XX wieku bez przywołania Jej nazwiska.

Jej najważniejsze monografie indywidualne stały się klasycznymi punktami odniesienia dla badaczy imiennictwa. Budowa morfologiczna staropolskich złożonych imion osobowych (1971) ukazała strukturę dawnych imion dwuczłonowych w perspektywie historycznej i słowotwórczej. Staropolskie skrócone nazwy osobowe od imion dwuczłonowych (1982) przyniosły systematyczny opis form skróconych i zdrobniałych. Natomiast Imiona chrześcijańskie w średniowiecznej Polsce (1994) pozostają jedną z podstawowych prac o przenikaniu tradycji chrześcijańskiej do polskiego systemu imienniczego średniowiecza.

Profesor Malec była również współredaktorką Słownika etymologiczno-motywacyjnego staropolskich nazw osobowych i autorką części poświęconej nazwom osobowym pochodzenia chrześcijańskiego. W ten sposób Jej dorobek łączył precyzyjną analizę językową, warsztat historyka języka, znajomość źródeł średniowiecznych i wrażliwość na kulturową funkcję imienia.

Choć najbliższa była Jej antroponimia, nie ograniczała się wyłącznie do nazw osobowych. Ważnym świadectwem Jej zainteresowań toponomastycznych jest Słownik etymologiczny nazw geograficznych Polski (2003), obejmujący nie tylko nazwy miejscowe, lecz także nazwy krain, rzek, jezior, gór, części miast i mikrotoponimy. Książka ta pokazuje Profesor Malec jako uczoną, która potrafiła łączyć ścisłość filologiczną z troską o czytelnika spoza wąskiego grona specjalistów.

Jej dorobek obejmuje monografie, słowniki, artykuły, recenzje, prace redakcyjne, wystąpienia konferencyjne i udział w wielkich zespołowych przedsięwzięciach leksykograficznych. Bibliografia Jej prac, publikowana w Onomastice, obejmuje okres od lat pięćdziesiątych XX wieku po drugą dekadę XXI wieku. Późniejsze komunikaty środowiskowe mówią o ponad dwustu publikacjach.

Profesor Maria Malec była także przez dziesięciolecia związana z Towarzystwem Miłośników Języka Polskiego. W latach 1991–2004 pełniła funkcję sekretarza Zarządu Głównego Towarzystwa, a następnie została jego członkiem honorowym. Była również członkinią komitetu redakcyjnego czasopisma Język Polski oraz rady naukowej Onomastiki.

Wspomnienia o Profesor Malec podkreślają nie tylko Jej dokonania naukowe, lecz także cechy osobiste: rzetelność, pracowitość, skromność, życzliwość i gotowość niesienia pomocy. Była uczoną wielkiego formatu, ale zarazem osobą cichą, dobrą i serdeczną. Wiedzę przekazywała bez dystansu i bez poczucia wyższości, z cierpliwością i uważnością wobec innych.

Profesor Maria Malec pozostawiła po sobie dzieło, bez którego trudno wyobrazić sobie współczesną polską onomastykę. Jej prace nadal będą służyć badaczom imion, nazwisk, nazw geograficznych, historii języka polskiego i kultury średniowiecznej. Pozostanie także w pamięci uczniów, współpracowników i wszystkich, którzy korzystali z Jej wiedzy i dobroci.

Cześć Jej pamięci.

Trouble dans la cartographie : un colloque international sur les contre-cartographies à Paris

 Du 7 au 9 septembre 2026, Paris accueillera le colloque international « Trouble dans la cartographie. Contre-cartographies et changements de paradigmes », une rencontre consacrée aux formes critiques, alternatives, sensibles, militantes et expérimentales de la cartographie contemporaine.

Le colloque se tiendra principalement au Campus des Cordeliers de Sorbonne Université, avant une clôture à la Bibliothèque nationale de France – site Richelieu. Des ateliers sont également prévus en amont, les 5 et 6 septembre. Portée par l’unité de recherche Médiation·s – Sciences des lieux, sciences des liens de Sorbonne Université, le centre de recherche Pléiade de l’Université Sorbonne Paris Nord et le Comité national français de géographie, la manifestation réunit chercheur·es, praticien·nes, artistes, géographes, urbanistes, militant·es, cartographes et spécialistes des sciences sociales.

L’enjeu central du colloque est simple, mais fondamental : que devient la cartographie lorsque la carte cesse d’être seulement un outil de représentation pour devenir un instrument de pouvoir, de contestation, de mémoire, de soin ou de justice ? Les cartes produites par les États, les institutions, les plateformes numériques ou les experts organisent le territoire, classent les populations, rendent certaines réalités visibles et en effacent d’autres. Les contre-cartographies cherchent précisément à troubler cet ordre établi : elles déplacent le regard, donnent place aux expériences vécues, rendent visibles les marges, les conflits, les absences et les résistances.

Le programme reflète cette ambition par une grande diversité de thèmes. Les premières sessions interrogeront les représentations institutionnelles, les récits cartographiques, le droit à la ville et les autochtonies. Les communications porteront notamment sur les pratiques numériques de contre-cartographie en zones de conflit, les cartographies de la violence d’État en Amérique latine, les mémoires territoriales autochtones ou encore les formes d’occupation et de résistance dans les espaces urbains.

Le deuxième jour mettra l’accent sur les leçons de terrain et les méthodologies. Il sera question des « blancs des cartes », de cartographie collective, d’ethnographie des pratiques contre-cartographiques, de cartographie post-représentationnelle, d’algorithmes, d’anarchisme, de syndicalisme, d’outils hybrides et de cartographies relationnelles. L’après-midi ouvrira plusieurs sessions parallèles consacrées à l’enseignement, aux outils et stratégies, aux imaginaires territoriaux, aux expériences de terrain, aux écologies, aux milieux, aux territoires urbains et aux pratiques du quotidien.

Le dernier jour élargira encore le champ avec des sessions sur les approches artistiques, les métabolismes territoriaux, les risques, les genres, corps et sexualités, l’hydrosocial et les collections cartographiques de la BnF. La présence de communications portant sur l’extractivisme, les rivières, les territoires autochtones, les cartes coloniales, les camps d’internement, les paysages vitivinicoles ou encore les pratiques cartographiques féministes montre que la contre-cartographie n’est pas un domaine marginal : elle touche aujourd’hui aux grands débats contemporains sur l’environnement, la mémoire, la justice spatiale, la reconnaissance et les droits.

L’une des forces du colloque est son ouverture linguistique et disciplinaire. Les interventions seront proposées en français, anglais, espagnol et allemand, et les approches croiseront la géographie, l’histoire, l’anthropologie, l’architecture, l’urbanisme, la sociologie, la philosophie, l’art, la sémiologie, les humanités numériques et les pratiques militantes. Cette pluralité correspond pleinement à l’objet même du colloque : penser la carte non comme un produit neutre et fermé, mais comme un espace de négociation, de conflit, d’imagination et de transformation sociale.

Pour les études onomastiques, toponymiques et culturelles, ce colloque présente également un intérêt particulier. Les cartes ne montrent pas seulement des lignes, des frontières ou des données : elles affichent aussi des noms. Or les noms de lieux, de quartiers, de rivières, de territoires autochtones ou d’espaces contestés participent à la construction symbolique du monde. Toute contre-cartographie implique donc aussi une réflexion sur la nomination : qui nomme ? qui efface ? qui traduit ? qui restitue ? qui rend visible ?

« Trouble dans la cartographie » s’annonce ainsi comme un rendez-vous important pour toutes celles et ceux qui s’intéressent aux formes contemporaines de représentation de l’espace. En donnant place aux cartes critiques, sensibles, militantes, décoloniales, pédagogiques, artistiques et participatives, le colloque invite à repenser la cartographie comme une pratique située, politique et profondément humaine.

Colloque : Trouble dans la cartographie. Contre-cartographies et changements de paradigmes
Dates : 7–9 septembre 2026
Lieu : Sorbonne Université, Campus des Cordeliers, Paris ; clôture à la BnF – Richelieu
Ateliers : 5–6 septembre 2026
Langues : français, anglais, espagnol, allemand

Astronymie sur RTS : quand les noms du ciel racontent notre histoire

 La Radio Télévision Suisse consacre une série de cinq épisodes à un domaine aussi poétique que scientifique : l’astronymie, c’est-à-dire l’étude des noms des astres et des objets célestes.

Diffusée dans l’émission CQFD sur RTS Première, cette série invite les auditeurs à lever les yeux vers le ciel autrement. Derrière les constellations, les étoiles, les planètes, les astéroïdes et les comètes se cachent en effet des histoires de mythologie, de langues anciennes, de savoirs transmis, de traductions, de découvertes astronomiques et de traditions savantes venues de plusieurs civilisations.

Le premier épisode, « Le nom des constellations », pose une question simple et fascinante : pourquoi la Grande Ourse, Orion ou Andromède portent-elles ces noms ? La série se poursuit avec les noms des étoiles, dont beaucoup gardent la trace de l’astronomie arabe médiévale, puis avec les planètes, les astéroïdes et enfin les comètes.

Pour les onomasticiens, cette série est particulièrement bienvenue. Elle rappelle que les noms ne concernent pas seulement les personnes, les lieux ou les marques. Le ciel lui-même est un immense espace nommé, classé, transmis et réinterprété. Chaque astronyme est une petite archive culturelle : il peut conserver un mythe grec, une observation arabe, une convention latine, une décision scientifique moderne ou même une mémoire populaire.

Cette série de RTS montre ainsi que l’onomastique peut dialoguer avec l’histoire des sciences, l’astronomie, la mythologie et la linguistique. Elle transforme le ciel nocturne en véritable carte culturelle, où chaque nom devient une invitation à comprendre comment les êtres humains ont appris à habiter l’univers par les mots.

Série : Astronymie
Émission : CQFD, RTS Première
Épisodes : constellations, étoiles, planètes, astéroïdes, comètes
À écouter sur RTS

Astronymy on RTS: When the Names of the Sky Tell Human Stories

Swiss public broadcaster RTS has launched a five-part series devoted to a field that is both scientific and poetic: astronymy, the study of the names of celestial bodies and astronomical objects.

Broadcast as part of CQFD on RTS Première, the series invites listeners to look at the sky in a different way. Behind the names of constellations, stars, planets, asteroids, and comets lie stories of mythology, ancient languages, scientific discovery, translation, scholarly tradition, and cultural memory.

The first episode, “The Names of the Constellations,” begins with a deceptively simple question: where do names such as Ursa Major, Orion, or Andromeda come from? The series then continues with the names of stars, many of which preserve traces of medieval Arabic astronomy, before turning to the planets, asteroids, and finally comets.

For scholars and lovers of onomastics, this series is especially valuable. It reminds us that names are not limited to people, places, or brands. The sky itself is a vast named landscape, ordered and reinterpreted across centuries. Every astronym is a small cultural archive: it may preserve a Greek myth, an Arabic observation, a Latin convention, a modern scientific decision, or a popular memory.

The RTS series therefore shows how onomastics can enter into dialogue with the history of science, astronomy, mythology, and linguistics. It turns the night sky into a cultural map, where every name becomes an invitation to understand how human beings have learned to inhabit the universe through words.

Series: Astronymy
Programme: CQFD, RTS Première
Episodes: constellations, stars, planets, asteroids, comets
Available on RTS

In Memoriam: Professor Adrian Koopman, Scholar of Zulu Names and Naming

The international onomastic community mourns the passing of Professor Adrian Koopman, one of South Africa’s most distinguished scholars of names, naming systems, isiZulu language, and cultural heritage.

Professor Koopman’s academic life was closely connected with the University of Natal, later the University of KwaZulu-Natal, where he devoted decades to the teaching and study of Zulu language and literature. He joined the University of Natal in 1974 as a junior lecturer, later returned to the Pietermaritzburg campus, and spent a long academic career in the field that would define his scholarship: the study of Zulu names and the cultural worlds they preserve.

His principal scholarly concern was onomastics. For Professor Koopman, names were never merely labels. They were records of social relationships, history, memory, environment, belief, humour, identity, and linguistic creativity. His work explored a wide range of name categories: personal names, clan names, place names, homestead names, names of plants and animals, bird names, and other forms of culturally meaningful nomination. Through these studies, he showed that Zulu naming practices could illuminate not only linguistic structure, but also the lived cultural imagination of a community.

His landmark book Zulu Names, published by the University of Natal Press in 2002, became a foundational contribution to African onomastics. The work brought together years of research on Zulu personal names, clan names, nicknames, praise names, place names, literary names, and the broader cultural logic of naming. It demonstrated that a name can carry grammar, history, social commentary, belief, poetic association, and personal experience at the same time.

Professor Koopman’s later books expanded this vision into the natural world. Zulu Plant Names examined the relationship between plants, language, cultural knowledge, metaphor, and traditional classification. Zulu Bird Names and Bird Lore continued this work by exploring how bird names encode observation, behaviour, sound, seasonality, symbolism, and oral tradition. His collaboration with Noleen Turner and Roger Porter on Zulu bird names helped produce a complete and systematic account of names for bird species in the Zulu-speaking region, drawing on workshops with expert Zulu-speaking bird guides. His final major publication, South African Bird Names through Time, Language and Usage, co-authored with Eckhart Buchmann, traced the evolution of bird names across historical sources, languages, and naming traditions.

The scale of Professor Koopman’s scholarly output was remarkable. In addition to his books, he published more than seventy articles and chapters in academic journals and edited volumes. His work connected onomastics with linguistics, oral literature, ethnobotany, ornithology, cultural history, environmental knowledge, and indigenous knowledge systems. He helped make the study of names in South Africa visible not as a marginal curiosity, but as a serious scholarly field with deep cultural and linguistic importance.

His institutional contribution was equally significant. He established the Onomastic Studies Unit at the University of KwaZulu-Natal and became one of the central figures of the Names Society of Southern Africa. He served as president of the society and edited its journal, Nomina Africana, for many years. He also contributed to the wider international discipline through the International Council of Onomastic Sciences, including service on its executive. In these roles, he helped connect South African name scholarship with a broader international community of researchers.

Yet Professor Koopman’s legacy cannot be measured only through books, articles, offices, and titles. His scholarship was animated by curiosity: curiosity about words, people, birds, plants, stories, landscapes, and the cultural intelligence carried by ordinary names. He understood that naming is one of the ways communities organise the world. A plant name can preserve ecological knowledge. A bird name can record sound, behaviour, or seasonal rhythm. A personal name can preserve emotion, circumstance, belief, and memory. A place name can reveal how people have inhabited and interpreted a landscape.

This is why his work matters beyond the borders of one language or one discipline. Professor Koopman showed that indigenous naming systems are not peripheral to scholarship. They are archives of knowledge. They deserve documentation, interpretation, and respect. His research helped ensure that Zulu names, and the cultural histories they contain, will remain available to future generations of linguists, onomasticians, cultural historians, birders, botanists, and readers interested in the deep relationship between language and place.

A further dimension of Koopman’s life and scholarship lies in the historical depth of the Koopman name in South Africa. Genealogical records connect the Cape Koopman/Coopman family to early Dutch colonial history through Bartholomeús Jansz Koopman, born before 17 August 1660 in Utrecht, Nederland, and deceased on 19 November 1722 at de Caep de Goede Hoop. His son Cornelis Coopman / Koopman, continued this Cape line and married Anna van de Caab around 1720 at the Cape of Good Hope, when he was about 28 years old. Their children included Hendrik, Bartholomeus, Michiel, Cornelis, Engela, Gerrit, and Anna Coopman / Koopman, placing the surname within one of the early family networks of the Cape.

This background gives the Koopman name a particular resonance in the South African context. Dutch in origin, rooted in the Cape from the early eighteenth century, and carried into a multilingual society shaped by European, local, creole and African histories, the surname itself belongs to the layered naming history that Professor Adrian Koopman spent his life studying. He did not merely approach names as distant linguistic objects; he worked in a country where surnames, place names, clan names and personal names all carry complex histories of migration, contact, identity and memory.

May his memory be a blessing to his family, colleagues, students, friends, and to all who continue the study of names.

Report: the 24th Slovak Onomastic Conference in Stará Lesná

 From 17 to 19 August 2026, the Slovak onomastic community and its international partners met in Stará Lesná for the 24th Slovak Onomastic Conference, held under the programmatic title “Continuity, Variability and Innovation in Onomastics.” The venue, the SAV ACADEMIA Congress Centre in the High Tatras, provided an ideal setting for a conference devoted to names, memory, place, language contact, and cultural identity. Stará Lesná, situated near Tatranská Lomnica and Starý Smokovec, placed the discussions in a landscape where geography, settlement history and linguistic heritage are visibly intertwined.

The conference was organised by the Ľudovít Štúr Institute of Linguistics of the Slovak Academy of Sciences, the Slovak Linguistic Society, and the Slovak Onomastic Commission. Its opening brought together three key institutional voices: Ľubor Králik, director of the institute; Pavol Žigo, chair of the Slovak Linguistic Society; and Juraj Hladký, chair of the Slovak Onomastic Commission. The structure of the programme made the central idea of the conference clear from the beginning: onomastics remains rooted in long scholarly traditions, but its questions and methods are changing rapidly.

The first session, moderated by Iveta Valentová, opened with broad theoretical and methodological perspectives. Milan Harvalík spoke on Continuity and transformations of theoretical-methodological approaches in Slavic onomastics: history, perspectives and dialogue, setting the tone for the whole meeting by asking how Slavic onomastics can remain historically grounded while entering new methodological conversations. This was followed by Pavol Žigo, Iveta Valentová, Peter Malčovský and Patrik Jakubek, whose paper Continuity, variability and innovations in onomastics: structural types of Slovak oikonymy brought the theme directly into Slovak settlement names. Mária Imrichová, in On the border of onymic subsystems, addressed the important question of transitions and overlaps between categories of names. Artur Gałkowski then widened the frame with A systemic perspective on chrematonomastic terminology, reminding participants that names of institutions, products and cultural objects require their own conceptual tools.

The afternoon of the first day moved strongly into South Slavic and intercultural material. Nenad Vuković discussed Word-formation models of personal names in Montenegro, while Amira Turbić-Hadžagić and Đenita Haverić examined Etymological and cultural patterns of Bosnian-Herzegovinian surnames, with special attention to polymotivation and onymic status. Małgorzata Magda-Czekaj presented Linguistic-cultural evidence of Polish-Czech-Slovak relations: history and the present, based on the ISNP, showing how onomastic material can document cultural contact across borders. Pavol Odaloš, with Functions of models of onyms, brought the discussion back to theory by reflecting on the role of models in name analysis.

The final session of the first day focused especially on toponymy and methodological comparison. Мери Јосифовска compared similar models of creating toponyms in Macedonian and Slovak toponymy, while Ewelina Zając explored the types of proper names appearing in verbal fluency research among preschool children, opening a bridge between onomastics and psycholinguistics. Дарко Томовски and Мирјана Вељаноска-Томовска interpreted several toponyms from the Florina region, bringing local historical geography into the discussion. The day ended with Gulnara Bekénova, whose English-language paper Problems of preservation and transformation of historical toponyms in Kazakhstan connected the conference theme to contemporary language policy, historical memory and post-Soviet naming practices.

The second day began with a strong toponymic block moderated by Juraj Hladký. Urszula Bijak opened with Erasing names, a compact but powerful topic pointing to the politics of disappearance, renaming and memory. Jaromír Krško examined Somatisms as primary construction elements of Slovak onymy, showing how the human body and metaphorical body terms structure naming. Michaela Boháčová presented Light and darkness in Czech place names, a semantic study of imagery embedded in toponyms. Iwona Nobis traced the movement from descriptive name to cultural symbol in Polish toponyms, while Anna Ramšáková analysed selected prepositional names in the Kysuce linguistic area against their wider Slovak distribution. Together, these papers showed how place names move between description, metaphor, grammar, region and culture.

The late-morning session, moderated by Milan Harvalík, shifted toward surnames, datasets and computational questions. Ľubor Králik contributed to the study of Slovak surnames of Latin origin, especially formations with the suffix -tor. Martin Diweg-Pukanec presented On the semantics of Slavic dobr- in the Multilingual Onomastic Dataset of the Cividale Gospel, connecting historical name material with multilingual digital resources. Andrea Scheller discussed resettlement and migration in the Czech lands as reflected in surnames. Štefan Toth then addressed one of the most current methodological questions of the conference: The possibilities and limits of using artificial intelligence in the classification of contemporary anthroponymy. This paper clearly marked the innovative side of the conference theme.

The afternoon split into two sections. Section A concentrated first on personal names and surnames in regional, historical and minority contexts. Iveta Valentová discussed the research and specific features of surnames of Slovaks in Hungary. Ján Bauko presented the development of Hungarian anthroponymic research in the ethnically mixed territory of Slovakia. Éva Császári examined the origin, motivation and metamorphosis of surnames in glassmaking settlements of the Bükk Mountains, using marriage and baptismal registers from 1789–1866. Martina Lobotková explored surname change in the history of one village. Alicja Przybylska, in Does my name have meaning?, questioned the limits of traditional anthroponomastic analysis on regional register and questionnaire material.

The later part of Section A moved toward literary, animal and intercultural onymy. Juraj Hladký and Andrej Závodný analysed the degree of identity between fiction and reality in literary onymy, using the story cycle Sváko Ragan z Brezovej. Paweł Graf discussed continuity, change and rupture in the onomastics of fictional worlds in Polish prose. Agnieszka Kołodziej asked about the justification of giving names to animals from a Czech-Polish perspective. Henryk Duszyński-Karabasz examined proper names in Polish-language materials for learning Thai, a topic that expanded the conference toward applied and intercultural naming contexts.

Section B was more urban, infrastructural and chrematonomastic. Piotr Tomasik analysed the names of new railway stations and stops in Poland, Czechia and Slovakia. Jiří Martínek presented Exotica on the map, focusing on Czech street names with Asian, African and Ibero-American motivation. Justyna Groblińska examined types of intervention in urban naming through selected Polish examples. Filip Pacalaj studied cognitive and behavioural aspects in urbanonyms with military motivation. Eli Vanyova Kanova discussed Bulgarian personal names in Slovak official translations, balancing linguistic norm and legal identity.

The second half of Section B continued with names in public, military, marketing and tourist spaces. Olena Karpenko presented Ukrainian Military Ergonyms: Semantic Aspect, a timely topic linking naming, war and institutional identity. Samuela Tomasik examined the newest Russian marketing chrematonyms under the striking formulation Names of war, war of names. Beata Afeltowicz discussed nomination strategies in contemporary Polish publishing houses. Martina Zirhutová closed the section with the onymic landscape of a tourist and ski resort, using Rokytnice nad Jizerou as a case study. The day concluded with dinner and a meeting of members of the Slovak Onomastic Commission.

The third day returned to a joint format and moved toward cultural memory, medieval studies, hydronymy and etymology. Under the moderation of Urszula Bijak, Magdalena Graf opened with In the Paris of the North and Little Rome, offering remarks on the eponymic layer of Polish. Valeriia Neklesova presented an associative study of the Patron the Dog memeplex, bringing contemporary digital culture and cultural memory into onomastic analysis. Jana Wachtarczyková discussed propria and their cultural aura in the light of vector representations, one of the most explicitly computational papers of the programme. Jakub Kurák considered onomastics in the context of medieval studies. Елка Јачева-Улчар then examined models of toponymisation in the southern Slavic area, returning the discussion to the transition from appellative to proper name.

The final session, moderated by Andrej Závodný, gave the conference a strong historical-toponymic conclusion. Nataliia Lisniak spoke on microtoponyms as carriers of the collective memory of deported Lemkos, combining place names with trauma, displacement and remembrance. Hana Svobodová analysed the toponymy of the Broumov region in Czech-German language contact. Erzsébet Győrffy reassessed the Bodrog–Ondava hydronymic problem beyond the explanation of scribal error. Patrik Jakubek contributed a regional hydronymic study of selected water names in the left-side Váh basin in the Galanta district. Finally, Harald Bichlmeier discussed the place name Boderitz in Thuringia and the reconstruction of Proto-Sorbian through the Old Sorbian onomasticon. It was a fitting conclusion: precise etymology, regional evidence, contact linguistics and historical reconstruction brought together the very dimensions named in the conference title.

In numerical terms, the final programme listed 49 papers and 53 individual scholars as paper authors or co-authors. The conference was notably international, with contributions in Slovak, Czech, Polish, South Slavic languages, Macedonian, Ukrainian, English and other Slavic scholarly traditions. Its range was equally broad: oikonymy, anthroponymy, hydronymy, urbanonymy, chrematonymy, literary onomastics, animal names, minority names, legal translation, digital methods, artificial intelligence, corpus work and cultural memory.

What made the 24th Slovak Onomastic Conference especially coherent was the way its title functioned not merely as a slogan, but as a real organising principle. Continuity appeared in the attention to the Slovak onomastic school, historical registers, medieval sources, hydronymy and inherited Slavic methodologies. Variability emerged in the comparison of regional, minority, cross-border and multilingual name systems. Innovation appeared in the use of corpora, vector representations, AI classification, verbal fluency research, digital culture and contemporary urban and military naming.

Stará Lesná thus became, for three days, a meeting point between traditional Slavic onomastics and the newest questions facing the discipline. The programme showed that name studies today are not confined to etymology or local history, although both remain essential. They also engage with migration, war, memory, legal identity, digital communication, artificial intelligence and the symbolic organisation of public space. In that sense, the conference confirmed the vitality of Slovak and international onomastics: a field deeply aware of its scholarly heritage, but fully open to the new realities in which names live.