From Historical Toponymy to Digital Onomastics: Honouring Kyzdarkhan Rysbergen’s Contribution to Kazakh Name Studies

On 10 November 2026, by decree of President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, Kyzdarkhan Rysbergen (Қыздархан Құрмашқызы Рысберген), Doctor of Philology and Chief Researcher at the A. Baitursynuly Institute of Linguistics in Almaty, was awarded Kazakhstan’s Order of Qurmet (Құрмет).

Ақорданың баспасөз қызметінің суреті

The decree itself does not provide a separate citation explaining why each individual recipient was honoured. It would therefore be incorrect to claim that Rysbergen was formally decorated “for onomastics” or for any single publication. The broader legal definition of the Order of Qurmet, however, explicitly includes merits in the development of science, culture and education, alongside contributions to the economy, social sphere, public service and civic activity. What follows is consequently not an attempt to invent an official motivation for the award, but a scholarly reading of the body of work against which this recognition can be understood.

For onomasticians, there is a particularly compelling reason to do so. Rysbergen’s career can be read almost as a condensed history of the transformation of Kazakh onomastics over the last four decades: from regional historical toponymy to linguocognitive interpretation; from printed dictionaries to national standardisation; from the card catalogue to the corpus; and, most recently, from normative recommendations to empirical testing against digital maps and public name usage.

That continuity is perhaps her most important achievement.

Entering onomastics in the age of the card index

Kyzdarkhan Rysbergen was born on 13 April 1957. She graduated with honours from the Faculty of Philology of Shymkent Pedagogical Institute in 1981, spent 1981–1983 as a research trainee at the Institute of Linguistics, and joined its Department of Onomastics in 1984. She later served as Academic Secretary of the Institute from 1996 to 2004 and was appointed Head of the Department of Onomastics in 2002. Today, the National Corpus of the Kazakh Language lists her as a Doctor of Philology and Chief Researcher of the Department.

The historical moment at which she entered the field is worth recalling. Between 1981 and 1986, the Department of Onomastics was carrying out a major programme of systematic collection. According to the Institute’s institutional history, its researchers accumulated approximately 130,000 items of onomastic material during those five years, establishing the basis of the Kazakh onomastic card index. These were not Rysbergen’s personal 130,000 records, and the distinction matters; rather, this was the scholarly infrastructure into which the young researcher entered.

Four decades later, Rysbergen is listed among the developers of an Onomastic Subcorpus containing nearly 3,000 onyms embedded in a textual database of approximately 15 million word tokens. The figures are not directly comparable: one measures card-index materials, the other onym entries and textual evidence. Historically, however, the contrast is striking. Her professional life has stretched from an era in which names were accumulated on cards to one in which they can be searched together with metadata, textual contexts, geographical information and cultural-semantic annotation.

South Kazakhstan: the historical foundations

Rysbergen’s first major field was historical toponymy. Her Candidate of Sciences dissertation, defended in 1993 under the supervision of Telgozha Zhanuzakov, was entitled Историко-лингвистический анализ топонимов Южно-Казахстанской области (на материале западных районов) [Historical-Linguistic Analysis of the Toponyms of the South Kazakhstan Region, Based on Its Western Districts]. The surviving author’s abstract confirms both the subject and the explicitly historical-linguistic orientation of the study.

The work matured into the 2000 monograph Историко-лингвистическое исследование топонимов Южного Казахстана [Historical-Linguistic Study of the Toponyms of Southern Kazakhstan]. It belongs to a foundational tradition of Kazakh toponymic scholarship in which the place name is simultaneously a linguistic form, a historical record and an indicator of human interaction with geographical space.

This was not merely the study of attractive etymologies. Historical toponymy requires the researcher to reconstruct layers: indigenous geographical terminology, settlement history, migration, phonological adaptation, the coexistence of Turkic and other naming strata, and the changing documentary representation of names. Rysbergen’s early work established precisely this historical sensitivity to the name as a piece of evidence.

It is significant that she has never really left this first intellectual home.

More than thirty years after the dissertation, Rysbergen led the 2022–2024 research project AP14872289, “Linguoculturological Study of Historical Toponyms of the Northern and North-Eastern Regions of Kazakhstan in the Context of National Statehood.” The project returned to historical documentary material, including old cartographic and administrative sources, but with a twenty-first-century objective: systematic digital preservation and corpus integration.

Her 2024 study of folk historical microtoponyms makes the connection explicit. It draws on late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century historical documentation and argues that historical toponyms, anthroponyms, patronyms and genonyms should be inventoried from historical sources, digitised from documents and old maps, and incorporated into the Onomastic Subcorpus of the National Corpus of the Kazakh Language.

The early historical toponymist had therefore not disappeared. She had acquired a digital archive.

From the origin of a name to the knowledge inside a name

The decisive theoretical expansion in Rysbergen’s scholarship came with the cognitive turn.

The Department’s 2006–2008 fundamental research programme was explicitly devoted to the “cognitive foundations of Kazakh national toponymy”; this line was followed by projects on the representation of the national idea in the Kazakh onomastic system and on Kazakh proper names in ethnocultural and linguistic-historical paradigms.

Rysbergen defended her doctoral dissertation on the linguocognitive foundations of Kazakh toponymy in 2010. Its larger synthesis appeared in 2011 as the 328-page monograph Ұлттық ономастиканың лингвокогнитивтік негіздері [Linguocognitive Foundations of National Onomastics]. This book is arguably the theoretical centre of her published work. It represents a shift from asking primarily “Where does this name come from?” to the broader question “What kind of knowledge about the world made this name possible?”

That change is fundamental. The etymological form of a toponym is only one layer. A place name may encode how a community distinguishes surface water from underground water, useful pasture from poor pasture, exposed land from shelter, vegetation suitable for particular livestock, sacred terrain from ordinary space, or an orientation point visible across an apparently featureless steppe. In such a model, toponymy becomes a form of accumulated environmental and cultural knowledge.

This conceptual line has matured rather than disappeared. In the 2024 Open Linguistics article written with Nurgeldy Uali, Anar Fazylzhanova and Kuralay Kuderinova, Rysbergen distinguishes between rational and irrational knowledge objectified in Kazakh toponyms. Rational knowledge includes empirical information derived from practical nomadic engagement with relief, water, pasture, vegetation and economic life; irrational knowledge includes mythology, animistic and religious ideas, beliefs, values, taboos and inherited symbolic associations.

The authors make an explicit novelty claim: for the first time within their proposed framework, Kazakh ethnoecological and ethnobotanical knowledge is represented through the “language matrix” of toponyms, with the analytical emphasis shifted from lexical form toward cultural semantics.

This is an important formulation of what Rysbergen’s cognitive onomastics has been attempting for years. A name such as Aqsu, Qarasū, Qarağash, Almaly or Shieli is not exhausted when its lexical components have been translated. The name preserves a local theory of landscape.

Seen from this perspective, onomastics becomes a form of intellectual archaeology.

Building the national onomastic infrastructure

Yet Rysbergen’s contribution cannot be adequately described through theory alone. A striking feature of her career is the repeated conversion of research into infrastructure: dictionaries, instructions, inventories, spelling norms, standardisation principles and digital resources.

The Institute records her participation in preparation of the instruction regulating the Russian rendering of Kazakh geographical names and the Kazakh rendering of Russian geographical names - bibliographic records give a 2002 edition, while the institutional biography refers to the work as part of her 2003 activities - as well as in drafting the 2004 Concept of Onomastic Work in the Republic of Kazakhstan. She also served on the Almaty municipal onomastic commission and on the Terminological Working Group concerned with the transition of Kazakh to Latin script.

The 2004 book written with her mentor Telgozha Zhanuzakov, Қазақ ономастикасы: жетістіктері мен болашағы [Kazakh Onomastics: Achievements and Future], is especially revealing. Rather than another regional name dictionary, it surveys Kazakh onomastic research conducted since 1950, evaluates its achievements and formulates directions for future work. It is simultaneously historiography, methodology and programme.

This field-building impulse found a particularly substantial material expression in the 2017 reference work Қазақстан Республикасы. Әкімшілік-аумақтық бірліктер атаулары [Republic of Kazakhstan: Names of Administrative-Territorial Units]. Rysbergen was not only a co-compiler and member of the editorial board but is explicitly identified as the project’s organisational leader. The 604-page volume contains approximately 19,000 names of administrative-territorial units and other objects, presenting their standard Kazakh and Russian forms.

Nineteen thousand names is not simply a large dataset. Each normalized pair potentially prevents divergence between administrative documents, maps, educational materials, databases, media usage and public signage. The importance of such work becomes clearer when placed in the larger history of Kazakh name standardisation. A 2009 national geographical-name reference book described the effort to provide frequently used names in consistent Kazakh, Russian and English forms as an initial attempt at such comprehensive harmonisation. By 2017 the administrative inventory had grown into an approximately 19,000-name normative resource.

The trajectory leads directly to Rysbergen and colleagues’ 2022 study on the foundations of standardisation in onomastic activity in the Republic of Kazakhstan, where spelling variation is no longer treated merely as an editorial inconvenience. In a state moving between scripts and operating simultaneously in national and international information environments, name standardisation becomes a question of interoperability.

This is where apparently traditional lexicography becomes unexpectedly modern.

Latinisation: when every proper name becomes a test case

Kazakhstan’s planned transition of Kazakh from Cyrillic to Latin script brought Rysbergen’s long-standing work on normative naming into a new domain. The Institute’s research programme documents a sequence of specialised tasks from 2017 onward: preparation concerning anthroponyms, rules for transliterating Kazakh personal names, parallel Cyrillic/Latin reference works for administrative-territorial and physical-geographical names, and work on foreign geographical names and other foreign-language onyms.

Rysbergen’s 2018 paper Ономастикалық атауларды латын әліпбиінде жазудың теориялық мәселелері [Theoretical Issues in Writing Onomastic Names in the Latin Alphabet] already treats transliteration, transcription and translation as distinct problems and draws attention to the particular difficulties presented by personal and geographical names.

In 2021, with İbrahim Şahin, she turned specifically to foreign geographical names, arguing that developing principles for their representation in a Latin-based Kazakh orthography was an essential component of the language reform. The paper is notable for looking beyond Kazakhstan’s endonyms: script reform also has to decide how Kazakh will write the rest of the world.

This line became increasingly comparative and international. In 2025, From Foreign to Familiar: Transliteration Challenges in the Latinization of Kazakh Exonyms examined phonological, orthographic and sociolinguistic problems of adapting foreign geographical names. The empirical material included a world-map inventory of 3,472 geographical names - 203 country names, 2,172 city and settlement names, 392 hydrographic names and 705 orographic names. Within a 1,269-name cross-country subset used to examine semantic adaptation, only 97 names, or 7.6%, were reported as semantically adapted into Kazakh, illustrating the continuing strength of Russian-mediated exonymic forms.

Also in 2025, Rysbergen and Eugen Schochenmaier compared the treatment of proper names across script reforms in Turkey, Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Romania, Moldova, Montenegro, Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, shifting the discussion from “which alphabet?” toward the more complex questions of institutional continuity, name standardisation, dual-script practice and digital usability.

In 2026 the investigation moved further. From Cyrillic to Latin: A Step Toward Phonemic Precision in Kazakh, co-authored with Didar Sadyk, Eugen Schochenmaier and Zeinep Bazarbayeva, formalised a phoneme-to-grapheme correspondence model and compared the 2021 Latin design with the current Cyrillic orthography. Here, orthographic reform was subjected to an explicitly replicable measurement framework rather than evaluated by impression alone.

The 2026 Acta Onomastica article by Dana Pashan, Kyzdarkhan Rysbergen and Eugen Schochenmaier widened the comparison again, reviewing exonymisation across five major script families and translating that typology into a structured research agenda for Kazakhstan.

What began decades earlier as the question of how to spell and standardise a geographical name had become an international problem of scripts, exonyms, databases and digital infrastructures.

Almaty: from mountains and rivers to restaurants and residential complexes

Another revealing transformation in Rysbergen’s research is spatial. The young researcher studied historical place names in Southern Kazakhstan. The mature researcher also studies the rapidly manufactured names of the modern metropolis. A grant-supported project on the urbanonymic system of Almaty placed street names, commercial names, residential-complex names and the multilingual linguistic landscape within the same broad onomastic field. The project was formally approved with Rysbergen as project leader.

A 2021 study of Almaty’s onomastic space examined a database of 1,424 ergonymic units, analysing the interaction of Kazakh, Russian and English under conditions of globalisation. A separate study of the city’s hodonymic system considered more than 2,000 street-related names.

The 2024 article Problems of Commercialisation and Commercial Nomination of the Urbanonymic Landscape of Almaty brings this line of research into particularly sharp focus. The study reports an empirical base of around 2,000 oikodomonyms and ergonyms, including 467 names of residential complexes and 1,424 ergonymic units. It also records 2,267 street, square and alley names, of which 1,036 - 45% - are memorial names referring to historical personalities and figures of culture, literature and science. These numbers matter because the problem has changed. Traditional toponymy asks how a community inherited names. Commercial urbanonymy asks how names are produced, packaged and sold.

The 2024 study therefore treats the urban name partly as a commodity: a tool of branding, status projection and market positioning. The linguistic landscape of Almaty reveals not merely three languages coexisting, but competing symbolic economies of prestige, globality, locality and identity. The subsequent 2026 study of branding and image in the formation of Almaty’s urbanonymic space continues this transition toward critical and sociolinguistic onomastics. There is a pleasing symmetry here. The same scholar who once reconstructed historical motivations embedded in old place names now investigates motivations deliberately engineered by contemporary naming agencies and property developers.

From the dictionary to the corpus

If standardisation is one of the principal applied strands of Rysbergen’s work, the Onomastic Subcorpus of the National Corpus of the Kazakh Language is perhaps its clearest digital continuation.

The first methodological work on the subcorpus described the collection of toponyms from Akmola and Almaty regions as a starting point and envisaged a multifunctional resource capable of representing Kazakhstan’s onomastic stock both synchronically and retrospectively.

The current resource defines its task broadly: to collect and systematise toponyms, anthroponyms and other onyms; to provide geographic, cultural-semantic and word-formation annotation; to record changes in geographical names; and to make their textual occurrence and frequency searchable. It presently reports nearly 3,000 onyms and approximately 15 million word tokens in its textual base. Rysbergen is named among its developers.

The conceptual significance goes beyond digitisation. A printed dictionary normally gives the researcher one carefully selected form and a finite explanation. A corpus can preserve variation, chronology, context and frequency. It can connect the normative name with the name as actually used.

This makes possible a new kind of onomastics: not only What should the name be? and What did the name mean?, but also Where is this form used? How often? In which period? Alongside which variants?

Rysbergen’s scholarship has thus moved through three increasingly complex representations of the proper name:

the name as an entry in a card index;
the name as an entry in a dictionary;
the name as a node in a searchable digital system.

From standard to evidence: the 2026 audit

The newest stage may prove the most consequential precisely because it subjects earlier normative work to empirical verification. On 3 November 2026, exactly one week before the presidential decree awarding Rysbergen the Order of Qurmet, Language Problems and Language Planning published online From Law to Label: Evaluating Kazakhstan’s Toponymic Standardization in Practice, by Eugen Schochenmaier, Kyzdarkhan Rysbergen, Kuralay Kuderinova and Dana Pashan.

The study asks a question that earlier generations of standardisation work could rarely answer quantitatively: Do officially standardised names actually coincide with the names encountered on a major public digital map? The audit compared 17,846 deduplicated settlement entries from the State Catalogue with OpenStreetMap populated-place features. A broad linkage model identified 6,439 linked OSM features. Of the 5,104 linked features carrying a Kazakh name:kk label, 2,899 - 56.8% - matched the State Catalogue exactly. These statistics do not imply that the remaining cases are all erroneous; linkage, missing tags, legitimate variation and different update cycles complicate such a simple interpretation. But methodologically the change is important.

The history has moved: from proposing standards → to compiling standards → to digitising standards → to measuring their implementation. That is an unusually coherent arc across a scholarly career.

Recognition - and an approaching anniversary

The Order of Qurmet is the most prominent in a longer sequence of professional recognition. The National Centre records the Ybyrai Altynsarin badge (2006), the badge “For Merits in the Development of Science of the Republic of Kazakhstan” (2018) and the distinction “For Merits in the Development of the Mother Tongue” (2022).

There is also an appropriate anniversary immediately ahead. Born on 13 April 1957, Kyzdarkhan Rysbergen will celebrate her 70th birthday on 13 April 2027, only five months after receiving the Order of Qurmet. By then, forty-three years will have passed since she formally joined the Department of Onomastics in 1984.

The timing invites reflection, but the greater milestone is intellectual rather than numerical.

When Rysbergen entered the Institute, Kazakh academic onomastics was building the card index that would preserve the country’s naming material. Today, she is working in an environment of annotated corpora, digital maps, Latinisation models, interoperable catalogues and quantitative audits of public geographical names.

Between those two moments lies not simply a long career but a transformation of what it means to study a proper name.

A note of scholarly gratitude

A tribute to a living scholar should not turn collaboration into mythology. Many of the dictionaries, corpora, standards and recent articles discussed here are collective achievements. Rysbergen worked within a distinguished Kazakh onomastic tradition inherited from scholars such as A. Abdrakhmanov and Telgozha Zhanuzakov and has continued that work together with several generations of colleagues. The significance of her contribution lies not in pretending that one scholar built an entire field, but in recognising an unusual continuity of participation across its successive transformations.

She has been present when names were collected.

She has studied how those names arose.

She has asked what forms of cultural knowledge they preserve.

She has helped establish how they should be written.

She has participated in converting them into digital resources.

And she has helped test how official names behave once they leave the dictionary and enter the map.

For colleagues in onomastics, this may be the most appropriate way to understand the Order of Qurmet: not simply as an honour attached to a distinguished name, but as recognition occurring at the end of more than four decades spent making other people’s names, place names and inherited naming systems visible, interpretable and usable.

There is a special kind of scholarly generosity in such work. Names recovered from historical documents become available to historians. Cultural meanings reconstructed from toponyms become available to linguists and ethnographers. Standardised forms become available to administrators, teachers and cartographers. Corpus data become available to the next generation of researchers. And inconsistencies discovered in contemporary databases become questions for tomorrow’s scholarship.

An order recognises an individual.

A scholarly legacy is what that individual makes possible for others.

For more than forty years, Kyzdarkhan Rysbergen has helped make the Kazakh onomasticon possible to record, understand, standardise and search.

On the occasion of the award of the Order of Qurmet - and in anticipation of her seventieth birthday - this is an appropriate moment not only for congratulations, but for scientific gratitude.

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Verified chronological bibliography

Bibliographical note. The following list comprises publications and scholarly outputs located and sufficiently verified during searches in Kazakh, Russian and English. It is not claimed to reproduce all of the 150–180 works attributed to Rysbergen in institutional sources. 

1. 1993. Рысбергенова, К.К. Историко-лингвистический анализ топонимов Южно-Казахстанской области (на материале западных районов). Автореферат диссертации на соискание учёной степени кандидата филологических наук. Алматы. The Russian State Library record gives 22 pp.

2. 1998. Жанұзақ, Т., Әбдірахманов, А., Рысбергенова, Қ., Сапарбекова, Ә., Мектепов, А., Рахметов, Ш., et al. Қазақстанның географиялық атаулары. Ақмола облысы [Geographical Names of Kazakhstan: Akmola Region]. Алматы: Рауан. 324 pp.

3. 2000. Рысбергенова, К.К. Историко-лингвистическое исследование топонимов Южного Казахстана. Алматы: Ғылым. 150 pp.

4. 2001. Джанузаков, Т., Рысбергенова, К.К., Онгарбаева, Н., Турлыкожаев, Т. Қазақстан Республикасының топонимдері. Топонимия Республики Казахстан: наименования населенных пунктов и крупных физико-географических объектов [Toponyms of the Republic of Kazakhstan: Names of Settlements and Major Physical-Geographical Features]. Алматы. 425 pp.

5. 2002. Жанузаков, Т., Рысберген, К., Абдрахманов, С. Инструкция по русской передаче казахских и казахской передаче русских географических названий Республики Казахстан. Алматы. The Institute’s biographical account refers to her participation in this work under 2003; its publication list records the instruction separately.

6. 2003. Рысберген, Қ. Ұлттық ономастика – уақыт сынында [National Onomastics under the Test of Time]. ҚР ҰҒА Хабарлары. Тіл, әдебиет сериясы, no. 3.

7. 2004. Жанұзақ, Т., Рысберген, Қ. Қазақ ономастикасы: жетістіктері мен болашағы [Kazakh Onomastics: Achievements and Future]. Алматы: Азия. 128 pp. ISBN 9965-9341-2-6.

8. 2005. Жанұзақ, Т., Рысберген, Қ. Қазақ ұлттық ономастикасының өзекті мәселелері [Current Issues of Kazakh National Onomastics]. Қазақстанның ғылыми әлемі / Научный мир Казахстана, no. 1, pp. 44–48.

9. 2007. Рысберген, Қ.Қ. Концептуалды зерттеулер методологиясы жөнінде [On the Methodology of Conceptual Research]. In Қазақ тілінің лексикология, лексикография, фольклортану мен көркем аударма мәселелері: қалыптасуы, дамуы мен болашағы. Алматы: Арыс.

10. 2008. Рысберген, Қ., Сағымбай, А. Қызылорда облысының ономастикалық атауларының көрсеткіш-анықтамалығы [Index-Reference Book of Onomastic Names of Kyzylorda Region]. Астана. 160 pp. ISBN 978-601-7147-11-2.

11. 2010. Рысберген, Қ.Қ. Қазақ топонимиясының лингвокогнитивтік және этномәдени негіздері [Linguocognitive and Ethnocultural Foundations of Kazakh Toponymy]. Doctoral dissertation. Алматы.

12. 2011. Рысберген, Қ.Қ. Ұлттық ономастиканың лингвокогнитивтік негіздері [Linguocognitive Foundations of National Onomastics]. Алматы: Дайк-Пресс. 328 pp.

13. 2012. Рысберген, К. Роль лексикографических источников в реконструкции языкового концепта. In XIII Международная научная конференция «Ономастика Поволжья», Ярославль, 13–14 September 2012.

14. 2012. Рысберген, Қ. Қазақ есімдер жүйесінің ұлттық мәдениетпен байланысы [The Relationship of the Kazakh Name System with National Culture]. Тілтаным, nos. 3–4.

15. 2012. Рысберген, Қ. Алматы қаласының лингвистикалық ахуалы [The Linguistic Situation of Almaty]. In Ономастиканың өзекті мәселелері. Алматы.

16. 2012. Рысберген, Қ. Ұлттық ономастикалық кеңістіктегі тарихи топонимдердің орны [The Place of Historical Toponyms in the National Onomastic Space]. In Өңірлердегі ономастика мәселелері: елді мекендердің дәстүрлі тарихи атаулары. Петропавл.

17. 2013. Рысберген, Қ. Ономастика мен ұлттық мәдениеттің өзара байланысы (экстралингвистикалық фактор) [The Relationship between Onomastics and National Culture: The Extralinguistic Factor]. Тілтаным, no. 3.

18. 2013. Рысберген, Қ. Ономастикалық атаулар номинациясындағы географиялық фактор [The Geographical Factor in the Nomination of Onomastic Names]. Тілтаным, no. 4.

19. 2013. Рысберген, К. Об общности аксиологического компонента в концептах казахской и русской лингвокультур. In Science Progress in European Countries: New Concepts and Modern Solutions. Stuttgart, pp. 76–80.

20. 2013. Рысберген, Қ. Тарихи атауларды сақтау ұлттық мүдде мәселесі [Preserving Historical Names as a Matter of National Interest]. Ономастикалық хабаршы, no. 1. Астана.

21. 2013. Рысберген, Қ. Тас мүсінге айналған қырық қыз [The Forty Girls Who Turned to Stone]. Ана тілі, 7 March 2013.

22. 2013. Рысберген, Қ. Тарихи атаулар қайтарылуы тиіс [Historical Names Should Be Restored]. Ана тілі, 30 May 2013.

23. 2014. Рысберген, Қ. Ономастикалық атаулардың бірыңғай ұлттық стандартын жасау қажет [A Unified National Standard for Onomastic Names Is Needed]. Айқын, no. 163.

24. 2014. Рысберген, Қ. Ономастика – әлемдік мәселе [Onomastics Is a Global Issue]. Ана тілі, no. 36.

25. 2017. Жанұзақов, Т., Рысберген, Қ.Қ., Оңғарбаева, Н.Б., Серікбаева, А.Д., Барменова, Н.Т. Қазақстан Республикасы. Әкімшілік-аумақтық бірліктер атаулары. Анықтамалық [Republic of Kazakhstan: Names of Administrative-Territorial Units. Reference Book]. Алматы: Дайк-Пресс. 604 pp. Rysbergen is listed as organisational leader, editorial-board member and compiler. The book contains approximately 19,000 names.

26. 2017. Rysbergen, K.K. “Ethnocultural Specificity of Onomastic Nomination.” News of the National Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Kazakhstan. Series of Social and Human Sciences, 5(315), pp. 54–57.

27. 2017. Рысберген, К.К. “Реалии постсоветской действительности в русской ономастической системе Казахстана.” Филологические науки. Вопросы теории и практики, no. 10(76), part 3, pp. 167–170.

28. 2018. Рысберген, Қ.Қ. Ономастикалық атауларды латын әліпбиінде жазудың теориялық мәселелері [Theoretical Issues in Writing Onomastic Names in the Latin Alphabet].

29. 2018 [issue; online record 2019]. Рысберген, Қ.Қ., Халидуллаева, Г.Б. Ж. Нәжімеденов жырларындағы «Туған жер» концептісінің репрезентациясы [Representation of the “Native Land” Concept in the Poetry of Zhumeken Nazhimedenov]. ҚазҰУ Хабаршысы. Филология сериясы, 172(4), pp. 102–109.

30. 2019. Рысберген, Қ.Қ., Тлегенова, Г.Б. Космонимдік атаулардың мифтанымдық сипаты [The Mythological Nature of Cosmonymic Names]. Евразийский Союз Ученых, no. 3(60), pp. 40–44. DOI: 10.31618/ESU.2413-9335.2019.9.60.40-44.

31. 2020. Қазақ тіліндегі өзге тілді ономастикалық атаулар. Анықтамалық [Foreign-Language Onomastic Names in Kazakh: A Reference Book]. Алматы. Editor: Қ. Рысберген; compilers N. Barmeshova, Z. Sadyrbayeva, Zh. Turgynbayeva, D. Sadyk, A. Seitbatkal.

32. 2021. Рысберген, Қ., Садық, Д. Алматының годонимдік жүйесіндегі тілдік ерекшеліктер [Linguistic Features of Almaty’s Hodonymic System]. Тілтаным, 4(84). DOI: 10.55491/2411-6076-2021-4-81-90.

33. 2021. Рысберген, Қ., Садық, Д., Рсалиева, Н. Алматы қаласы ономастикалық кеңістігінің жаһандану жағдайындағы тілдік-әлеуметтік даму үдерісі [Linguistic and Social Development of Almaty’s Onomastic Space under Globalisation]. Әл-Фараби, 76(4). DOI: 10.48010/2021.4/1999-5911.08.

34. 2021. Рысберген, Қ.Қ., Шаһин, И. Шеттілдік географиялық атауларды қазақ тілінің латын графикасы негізінде жазу тілді реформалаудың маңызды міндеті [Writing Foreign Geographical Names in a Latin-Based Kazakh Script as an Important Task of Language Reform]. Қарағанды университетінің хабаршысы. Филология сериясы, 4(104), pp. 7–14. DOI: 10.31489/2021Ph4/7-14.

35. 2022. Рысберген, Қ., Пашан, Д., Садырбаева, З., Бармешова, Н. Қазақстан Республикасын ономастикалық қызмет саласындағы стандарттау негіздері [Foundations of Standardisation in the Field of Onomastic Activity of the Republic of Kazakhstan]. Адам әлемі, 92(2), pp. 141–152. DOI: 10.48010/2022.2/1999-5849.14.

36. 2022 [issue; online 2023]. Рысберген, Қ.Қ., Рсалиева, Н.М., Садырбаева, З.Б., Пашан, Д.М., Сейтбатқал, Ә.Б. Ономастикалық ішкорпусты жасау және әлемдік тәжірибе [Creating an Onomastic Subcorpus and International Experience]. Bulletin of L.N. Gumilyov Eurasian National University. Philology Series, 139(2), pp. 8–19. DOI: 10.32523/2616-678X-2022-139-2-8-19.

37. 2023. Rysbergen, K., Uali, N. Халықтық топонимдердегі ақ және қара түстердің мәдени-тілдік семантикасы [Cultural-Linguistic Semantics of White and Black in Folk Toponyms]. Bulletin of the Eurasian Humanities Institute. Philology Series, no. 1, pp. 128–142. DOI: 10.55808/1999-4214.2023-1.10.

38. 2023. Rysbergen, K., Sadyrbayeva, Z., Pashan, D., Seitbatal, A., Sadyk, D. “Experience of Creating the Onomastic Subcorpus of the National Corpus of the Kazakh Language.” Tiltanym, 3(91).

39. 2023. Alimbay, N.A., Fazylzhanova, A.M., Smagulov, B.Q., Rysbergen, K.K. “Strengthening the Peasant Colonization of the Kazakh Krai in the Period of the Stolypin Agrarian Reform (1906–1917).” Bylye Gody, 18(4), pp. 2075–2095. DOI: 10.13187/bg.2023.4.2075.

40. 2024. Рысберген, Қ.Қ. Халықтық тарихи микротопонимдердің лингвомәдени семантикасы [Linguocultural Semantics of Folk Historical Microtoponyms]. Tiltanym, no. 2, pp. 5–17. DOI: 10.55491/2411-6076-2024-2-5-17.

41. 2024. Rysbergen, K.K., Pashan, D.M., Sadyk, D.A. “Problems of Commercialisation and Commercial Nomination of the Urbanonymic Landscape of Almaty.” RUDN Journal of Language Studies, Semiotics and Semantics, 15(2), pp. 520–543. DOI: 10.22363/2313-2299-2024-15-2-520-543.

42. 2024. Rysbergen, K., Uali, N., Fazylzhanova, A., Kuderinova, K. “Linguistic Explication of Rational and Irrational Knowledge Types in the Content of Toponyms (on the Material of the Linguocultural Dictionary).” Open Linguistics, 10(1), article 20240031. DOI: 10.1515/opli-2024-0031.

43. 2025. Amirbekova, A., Orynbasar, T., Rysbergen, K., Pashan, D. “Когнитивный стиль метафоризации в художественном тексте.” Eurasian Journal of Philology: Science and Education, 197(1), pp. 18–28. DOI: 10.26577/EJPh202519712.

44. 2025. Rysbergen, K., Rsaliyeva, N., Pashan, D., Schochenmaier, E., Seyitbatkal, A. “From Foreign to Familiar: Transliteration Challenges in the Latinization of Kazakh Exonyms.” Forum for Linguistic Studies, 7(6), pp. 42–55. DOI: 10.30564/fls.v7i6.9617. Published online 23 May 2025.

45. 2025. Rysbergen, K., Schochenmaier, E. “The Impact of Script Reform on Names across Cultures. Lessons for Kazakhstan’s 2031 Latinization.” Cultural Perspectives, no. 30, pp. 228–252. DOI: 10.29081/CP.2025.30.11.

46. 2026. Sadyk, D.A., Rysbergen, K.K., Schochenmaier, E., Bazarbayeva, Z.M. “From Cyrillic to Latin: A Step Toward Phonemic Precision in Kazakh.” XLinguae, 19(2), pp. 306–315. DOI: 10.18355/XL.2026.19.02.18.

47. 2026. Pashan, D., Rysbergen, K., Sadyk, D. “Branding and Image as Significant Factors Forming the Urbanonymic Space of Almaty.” Bulletin of Shakarim University. Philology Series, 1(2/6), pp. 6–15. Published 30 June 2026.

48. 2026. Pashan, D., Rysbergen, K., Schochenmaier, E. “Exonymization Strategies Across Scripts: A Typological Review and Research Agenda for Kazakhstan.” Acta Onomastica, 67(2), pp. 389–412. DOI: 10.58756/A2673416.

49. 2026. Schochenmaier, E., Rysbergen, K., Kuderinova, K., Pashan, D. “From Law to Label: Evaluating Kazakhstan’s Toponymic Standardization in Practice.” Language Problems and Language Planning. Online First, 3 November 2026. DOI: 10.1075/lplp.25013.sch.

Maleshoane Rapeane-Mathonsi: Basotho blanket names and colours

 

The lecture series Onomastics Online continued on 12 November 2026 with a lecture presented by Maleshoane Rapeane-Mathonsi (Durban University of Technology, South Africa) with the title "A socio-onomastic analysis of Basotho blanket names and colours: from representations of unity to turf wars".

Abstract: 

Lesotho, a former British protectorate, inherited what is now commonly known as the Basotho blanket from the British rule. Today, it stands as a powerful symbol of unity and cultural identity among the Basotho people. These blankets are given distinct names based on their motifs or the occasions they are worn, reflecting their deep cultural significance. Due to this strong attachment, many Basotho prefer authentic blankets over cheaper imitations found in neighbouring SADC countries. However, the blanket also reflects divisions within Basotho society. It has become a marker of identity for rival accordion music groups, Seakhi and Terene, who wear blue/black and yellow blankets respectively. Political parties similarly associate themselves with specific blanket colours, turning a symbol of unity into one of factionalism.

This paper explores the various names given to Basotho blankets and how these names reflect both national pride and group identity. Using socio-onomastics as its framework, the study draws on data from Aranda and other blanket retailers, family collections, and literature. It highlights how the blanket, while representing the Basotho nation, also serves as a visual language for political, musical and other affiliations.

Onomastics Online (ICOS – International Council of Onomastic Sciences) is a series of online lectures dealing with important timely topics related to names and naming. Presented by distinguished scholars from various academic backgrounds, the lectures demonstrate the importance and the multidisciplinary nature of onomastic research. To see the list of upcoming and past lectures, please visit our webpage at: https://icosweb.net/onomastics-online/.

New Issue of Problems of Onomastics: 2026, Vol. 23, No. 2

 A new issue of Problems of Onomastics / Voprosy onomastiki - 2026, Volume 23, Issue 2 - has been published. The volume offers an exceptionally broad panorama of contemporary name studies, ranging from Old Turkic runiform inscriptions and Indo-European mythology to digital toponymy, historical anthroponymy, geographical-name standardization, commercial naming, and postcolonial approaches to place names.

The issue opens with Aleksandr V. Savelyev and Yuriy M. Svoyskiy, “Onomastics of the Yenisei Turkic Runiform Inscriptions in Light of New Documentation.” Drawing on 3D documentation undertaken in 2024–2025, the authors analyse 87 inscriptions from Khakassia and Tuva. The current corpus contains approximately 120 onymic units, including anthroponyms, toponyms, ethnonyms and politonyms, and the new documentation makes it possible to revise several earlier readings.

Armen Petrosyan explores The Indo-European Myth of the Founding of City by Twin Brothers, comparing Armenian, Indian, Baltic and Italic traditions and examining the onomastic and etymological links surrounding legendary founders, including Romulus and Remus. Blanca María Prósper, in Further Linguistic Considerations on a New Celtiberian Bronze, returns to a recently published Celtiberian inscription and discusses new lexical and onomastic interpretations as well as questions of Celtic morphology and dialectology.

Several contributions demonstrate how historical sources and new digital methods can complement one another in toponymic research. Alexander Dmitriev examines the suffix -shchina in the seventeenth-century contact toponymy of Ingria. His corpus comprises 247 toponymic units, including Russian, Turkic and Finnic anthroponymic bases, while 81 names are subjected to cartographic analysis. Anna Bakhtereva and Mikhail Bakhterev discuss manual and automatic methods of geospatial referencing of toponymic data. Their automatic procedure has already enabled the georeferencing of approximately 46,000 records, illustrating the growing importance of GIS-based methods for large onomastic datasets.

Anthroponymy is represented by several historically and socially oriented studies. Maria Zavyalova investigates Lithuanian mono-component personal names over the period 1920–2020, tracing their semantics, changing popularity and links with cultural identity; among particularly productive groups are names derived from plants, the aquatic sphere and pre-Christian mythology. Petr Prudovsky reconstructs Russian naming practices from Brandenburg-Prussian diplomatic documentation of 1649–1660, showing how Russian names were transmitted, shortened and adapted within a German administrative environment. Elizaveta Borisova examines Northern Russian nicknames motivated by occupations and professional activity, including the transition from individual nicknames to family designations.

The issue also turns to the institutional dimension of place naming. Andrea Bölcskei provides an overview of more than a century of Hungarian settlement-name standardization, considering such principles as historical authenticity, linguistic accuracy, semantic motivation and etymological transparency, as well as the growing role of local communities and international standardization practices.

The section “From the History of Surnames” contains Anton Sobolev’s study of the surname Korelskiy (Karelskiy). Instead of deriving the surname directly from the Nikolo-Korelsky Monastery, the author relates its emergence in different settlements of the Arkhangelsk region from the sixteenth century onward to descendants of migrants from the Korelsky district and reconstructs the wider Karelian linguistic and migration background.

The geographical scope then extends well beyond Europe and Eurasia. In the brief communication Names of Bakso Eateries in Indonesia: Patterns, Meanings, and Sociocultural Reflections, Daroe Iswatiningsih, Ria Arista Asih, Yeni Artanti and Sri Wahyuni analyse a corpus of 101 restaurant names, showing how personal names, geographical references, sensory associations, religious elements and marketing strategies interact in Indonesian commercial naming.

The review section features Dmitry Spiridonov’s discussion of Paul Carter’s Naming No Man’s Land: Postcolonial Toponymies (2024), focusing on the creation of geographical names in the Noongar language in Western Australia and on broader methodological questions surrounding “toponymic decolonisation.”

Finally, the issue reports on developments within onomastics itself. Sergey Goryaev introduces the new Russian scholarly periodical Onomastic Bulletin, analysing its first four issues published in 2025, its emerging structure and its particular attention to literary, regional and peripheral onomastics. The issue concludes with the journal’s Bookshelf section.

Taken together, Problems of Onomastics 23(2) demonstrates the remarkable methodological and geographical breadth of present-day onomastics: ancient inscriptions and medieval documents stand alongside GIS, digital corpora and quantitative data; personal names and surnames are considered together with settlement names, commercial names and Indigenous toponymy. The issue should therefore be of interest not only to onomasticians, but also to linguists, historians, epigraphists, geographers and scholars working on language contact and cultural history.

The complete table of contents, abstracts and individual articles are available on the journal’s website.

Новый выпуск журнала «Вопросы ономастики»: 2026, т. 23, № 2

Вышел новый номер журнала «Вопросы ономастики» — 2026, том 23, № 2. Выпуск отличается необычайно широким тематическим и географическим охватом: от древнетюркских рунических надписей и индоевропейской мифологии до цифровой топонимики, исторической антропонимии, стандартизации географических названий, коммерческой номинации и постколониальных подходов к топонимии.

Открывает номер статья Александра В. Савельева и Юрия М. Свойского «Из ономастики енисейско-тюркских рунических надписей (по материалам новой документации)». Исследование опирается на 3D-документацию, проведенную в 2024–2025 гг.: современными методами были обработаны 87 памятников из Хакасии и Тувы. В нынешней версии корпуса насчитывается около 120 ономастических единиц — антропонимов, топонимов, этнонимов и политонимов; новые данные позволили уточнить и пересмотреть ряд прежних прочтений.

Армен Петросян в статье «Индоевропейский миф об основании города братьями-близнецами» сопоставляет армянские, индийские, балтийские и италийские предания и рассматривает ономастические и этимологические связи, связанные с мифологическими основателями городов, включая Ромула и Рема. В работе Бланки Марии Проспер Further Linguistic Considerations on a New Celtiberian Bronze предлагается новое прочтение ряда лексических и ономастических элементов недавно опубликованной кельтиберской надписи и рассматриваются проблемы кельтской морфологии и диалектологии.

Сразу несколько работ показывают, насколько продуктивным становится сочетание исторических источников с цифровыми методами. Александр Дмитриев исследует суффикс -щина в контактной топонимии Ингерманландии XVII в. Материал включает 247 топонимических единиц с русскими, тюркскими и прибалтийско-финскими антропонимическими основами; 81 топоним дополнительно рассматривается картографически. Анна Бахтерева и Михаил Бахтерев анализируют ручные и автоматические методы геопространственной привязки топонимических данных. Разработанная методика уже позволила геореференцировать около 46 000 записей, наглядно демонстрируя возможности GIS-технологий при работе с крупными ономастическими массивами.

Антропонимический блок представлен несколькими исследованиями исторической и социокультурной направленности. Мария Завьялова анализирует литовские односоставные личные имена на протяжении столетнего периода 1920–2020 гг., рассматривая их семантику, динамику популярности и связь с культурной идентичностью; среди наиболее продуктивных групп выделяются имена, связанные с растениями, водной стихией и дохристианской мифологией. Петр Прудовский реконструирует русскую антропонимию по бранденбургско-прусской дипломатической документации 1649–1660 гг., показывая, каким образом русские имена воспринимались, сокращались и адаптировались в немецкой административной среде. Елизавета Борисова рассматривает номинативные модели севернорусских прозвищ, связанных с профессиональной деятельностью человека, в том числе процессы перехода от индивидуальных прозвищ к семейным именованиям.

Институциональной стороне топонимии посвящена работа Андреа Бёльчкеи об истории стандартизации названий населенных пунктов в венгерском языке. Автор прослеживает развитие этой системы более чем за сто лет, рассматривая принципы исторической достоверности, языковой правильности, семантической мотивированности и этимологической прозрачности, а также возрастающую роль местных сообществ и международных норм стандартизации.

В рубрике «Из истории фамилий» опубликована статья Антона Соболева «О происхождении фамилии Корельский (Карельский)». Автор пересматривает традиционную связь фамилии с Николо-Корельским монастырем и связывает ее независимое возникновение в разных населенных пунктах Архангельского региона начиная с XVI в. с потомками переселенцев из Корельского уезда, одновременно реконструируя карельский языковой и миграционный фон.

География выпуска выходит далеко за пределы Европы и Евразии. В кратком сообщении Дароэ Исватинингсих, Риа Ариста Асих, Йени Артанти и Сри Вахьюни Names of Bakso Eateries in Indonesia: Patterns, Meanings, and Sociocultural Reflections исследуется корпус из 101 названия индонезийских заведений, специализирующихся на баксо. Авторы показывают взаимодействие антропонимов, географических указаний, сенсорных ассоциаций, религиозных элементов и маркетинговых стратегий в коммерческой номинации.

В разделе рецензий Дмитрий Спиридонов рассматривает книгу Пола Картера Naming No Man’s Land: Postcolonial Toponymies (2024), посвященную созданию географических названий на языке нунгар в Западной Австралии и более широким теоретическим вопросам так называемой «топонимической деколонизации».

Наконец, выпуск обращается и к развитию самой ономастики как научной дисциплины. Сергей Горяев представляет новое российское научное периодическое издание «Ономастический вестник», анализируя его первые четыре номера, вышедшие в 2025 г., складывающуюся структуру журнала и особое внимание к литературной, региональной и периферийной ономастике. Завершает номер традиционная рубрика «Книжная полка».

В целом новый выпуск «Вопросов ономастики» ярко демонстрирует методологическое и географическое разнообразие современной науки об именах. Древние надписи и документы XVII столетия соседствуют здесь с GIS, цифровыми корпусами и количественным анализом; личные имена и фамилии — с ойконимами, коммерческими названиями и топонимией коренных народов. Номер представляет интерес не только для ономастов, но и для лингвистов, историков, эпиграфистов, географов, специалистов по языковым контактам и истории культуры.

Полное содержание, аннотации и материалы выпуска доступны на сайте журнала.

La nouvelle toponymie de CDG

 

Les États de l’Air 2026 - Atelier 1 : La nouvelle toponymie de CDG

Avec :

Isabelle DREYSSE | Groupe ADP | Directrice du projet Toponymie CDG

Ugo SCIORE | AIR FRANCE | Responsable de portefeuille et Chef de projet

Léopold GRAMAIZE | DÉLÉGATION PRÉFECTORALE | Directeur des sécurités et opérations CDG et Le Bourget

Un atelier animé par : Isabelle DREYSSE

L’aéroport Paris-Charles de Gaulle engage une vaste refonte de la toponymie de ses terminaux. En lien avec Air France, Groupe ADP souhaite améliorer la lisibilité des parcours, dans la perspective de l’arrivée du CDG Express et du développement futur de l’aéroport.

Cet atelier présente les impacts de ce chantier sur la signalétique, l’informatique, la communication et la relation avec les partenaires aéroportuaires, ainsi que l’organisation mise en place pour atteindre l’objectif de mars 2027.

Retransmission en direct de la 7e édition des États de l’Air, organisée par ENAC Alumni à la DGAC.

Mardi 20 octobre 2026, de 10h30 à 11h30 (heure de Paris).

When Blankets Speak: Names, Colours and Cultural Identity among the Basotho – Onomastics Online, 12 November 2026

 Can a blanket tell us who someone is, where they belong, or even which political or musical group they support? And what happens when a national symbol of unity becomes a marker of division?

These fascinating questions will be explored in the next Onomastics Online lecture, organised by the International Council of Onomastic Sciences (ICOS), on Thursday, 12 November 2026, at 17:00 CET (UTC+1).

The invited speaker, Maleshoane Rapeane-Mathonsi, Associate Professor at Durban University of Technology, South Africa, will present:

“A socio-onomastic analysis of Basotho blanket names and colours: from representations of unity to turf wars”

The session will be moderated by Chrismi Loth (University of the Free State, South Africa).

When a Blanket Becomes a Name, a Symbol and an Identity

The traditional Basotho blanket is much more than an item of clothing. Deeply embedded in the cultural heritage of Lesotho, it represents national pride, collective memory and belonging. Its distinctive patterns and colours carry social meanings, while individual blankets receive names associated with their designs, symbolism or occasions of use.

These names form a fascinating onomastic system in which material culture, linguistic expression and social identity intersect.

Yet the same blanket that symbolises national unity can also communicate division.

In contemporary Basotho society, particular blanket colours have become associated with competing groups. Supporters of the rival accordion music groups Seakhi and Terene, for example, identify themselves through blue/black and yellow blankets, respectively. Political affiliations may likewise be expressed through distinctive blanket colours.

The result is a remarkable transformation: a shared cultural emblem becomes a visual marker of group membership, rivalry and social boundaries.

What Can Socio-Onomastics Reveal?

Drawing on information from Aranda and other blanket retailers, family collections and published literature, Rapeane-Mathonsi examines the names assigned to Basotho blankets and the cultural knowledge embedded in them.

Her research raises broader questions relevant to contemporary onomastics:

How do names attached to cultural objects acquire social meaning? How do naming practices express collective identities? And how can the same named object simultaneously represent solidarity and division?

By examining the relationships between names, colours, symbolism and group identity, the lecture demonstrates that onomastic research extends far beyond conventional personal names and place names.

It also offers a valuable perspective on the naming of material objects and the ways such names participate in social communication, cultural identification and the construction of group boundaries.

About the Speaker

Maleshoane Rapeane-Mathonsi is Associate Professor in Media, Language and Communication at Durban University of Technology, South Africa.

She earned her PhD at the University of Cape Town and previously worked at the National University of Lesotho. Her research interests include formal linguistics, socio-onomastics, and language and gender.

She has contributed to the Lesotho Sign Language Dictionary, works as a translator and serves as Deputy President of the Names Society of Southern Africa. She is also involved in the International Symposium on Place Names and co-founded academic conferences within DUT's Faculty of Arts and Humanities.

Event Details and Registration

• Date: Thursday, 12 November 2026

• Time: 17:00 CET (UTC+1) / 18:00 SAST (UTC+2)

• Speaker: Maleshoane Rapeane-Mathonsi (Durban University of Technology, South Africa)

• Moderator: Chrismi Loth (University of the Free State, South Africa)

• Platform: Microsoft Teams

• Organiser: International Council of Onomastic Sciences (ICOS)

Register for the Onomastics Online lecture

Preregistration is required. Registered participants will receive a meeting link by email, followed by an automatic reminder one hour before the event.

About Onomastics Online

Onomastics Online is an international lecture series organised by ICOS, bringing together scholars from different academic disciplines to discuss significant developments in names and naming research.

The series highlights the multidisciplinary character of onomastics and provides a forum for exchanging ideas across linguistic, cultural and geographical boundaries.

Further information about the lecture series and recordings of previous events can be found through:

ICOS – Onomastics Online

ICOS YouTube Channel

Du cadastre napoléonien à l’histoire des noms de lieux : conférence de SFO le 16 novembre 2026

Illustration IA – affiche non officielle

 Comment retrouver l’histoire d’une parcelle, suivre les transformations d’un paysage ou reconstituer l’évolution des lieux-dits à partir de documents cadastraux vieux de deux siècles ?

Le lundi 16 novembre 2026, à 17 h, la Société française d’onomastique (SFO) accueillera Solenn Tual, chercheuse postdoctorale au Centre Inria de l’Université Grenoble Alpes, pour une conférence intitulée :

« Analyse critique et traitement automatique du cadastre ancien pour décrire l’évolution des parcelles et des repères géographiques »

La conférence se tiendra aux Archives nationales à Paris et sera également accessible en ligne.

Quand les archives cadastrales racontent l’histoire des lieux

Établi à partir du début du XIXᵉ siècle, le cadastre napoléonien constitue une source exceptionnelle pour l’étude des paysages historiques. Derrière sa vocation première, essentiellement fiscale, se cache une véritable mémoire du territoire : plans parcellaires, états de section et matrices cadastrales permettent de retrouver d’anciens propriétaires, de suivre les transformations foncières et d'identifier des lieux parfois disparus.

Pour les onomasticiens, ces documents présentent un intérêt tout particulier. Ils conservent des microtoponymes, noms de lieux-dits et anciennes dénominations de voies, offrant ainsi la possibilité d’étudier non seulement les formes historiques des noms, mais aussi leurs relations avec l’évolution de l’espace géographique.

Cependant, exploiter ces sources à grande échelle soulève plusieurs difficultés : diversité des documents, changements de structure, informations fragmentaires et correspondances parfois incertaines entre les parcelles de différentes époques.

L’intelligence artificielle et la géohistoire au service de l’onomastique

La conférence de Solenn Tual présentera les possibilités et les limites du traitement automatique des registres cadastraux anciens.

Comment extraire les informations de ces documents ? Comment les structurer et établir des relations entre des parcelles, des propriétaires et des lieux nommés ? Et comment reconstituer, à partir de sources hétérogènes, la succession des transformations d’un territoire ?

L’un des enjeux essentiels réside dans la critique préalable des sources : avant toute automatisation, il faut comprendre la nature, l’organisation et les limites des documents historiques.

Des exemples issus du Val-de-Marne, du Finistère et des Hautes-Alpes illustreront notamment la reconstruction de l’évolution parcellaire, les transformations de l’occupation du sol, les changements affectant les lieux-dits et les voies, ainsi que la localisation de contribuables et de repères géographiques antérieurs au cadastre.

Cette approche ouvre des perspectives particulièrement intéressantes à l’intersection de la toponymie historique, de la géographie, de l’histoire foncière et des humanités numériques.

À propos de la conférencière

Docteure de l’Université Gustave Eiffel, Solenn Tual a soutenu en 2025 une thèse intitulée Reconstitution automatique de la généalogie des parcelles et des bâtiments à partir de sources historiques.

Actuellement chercheuse postdoctorale au Centre Inria de l’Université Grenoble Alpes, elle poursuit ses travaux dans le domaine de la structuration et de l’exploitation des connaissances issues de sources historiques.

Sa thèse peut être consultée sur theses.fr.

Informations pratiques

• Date : lundi 16 novembre 2026

• Heure : 17 h (heure de Paris)

• Conférencière : Solenn Tual

• Organisateur : Société française d’onomastique

• Lieu : Archives nationales, CARAN – salle suspendue, 11 rue des Quatre-Fils, 75003 Paris

• Participation : libre et gratuite, en présentiel ou en ligne

Rejoindre la conférence sur Zoom

Pour davantage d'informations : Société française d’onomastique.

Im Namen der Gemeinschaft: Online-Kolloquium zur soziokulturellen Bedeutung von Rufnamen am 16. November 2026

KI-generierte Illustration
(kein offizielles Veranstaltungsplakat).

 Wer entscheidet eigentlich, welchen Namen ein Mensch erhält? Und was verrät die Namengebung über das Verhältnis zwischen Individuum und Gemeinschaft?

Diesen grundlegenden Fragen der Anthroponomastik widmet sich das nächste Namenkundliche Kolloquium Online der Gesellschaft für Namenforschung (GfN), das am Montag, dem 16. November 2026, um 18:30 Uhr stattfindet.

Unter dem Titel „Im Namen der Gemeinschaft – Rufnamen und ihre soziokulturelle Gebundenheit“ untersucht Inga Siegfried-Schupp die Namengebung aus einer kulturvergleichenden Perspektive.

Einen Menschen beim Namen zu rufen, gehört zu den selbstverständlichsten Handlungen unseres sprachlichen Alltags. Einen Menschen zu benennen, ist dagegen ein Vorgang von weitreichender sozialer Bedeutung. Denn mit der Vergabe eines Namens wird ein Individuum nicht nur identifizierbar, sondern zugleich in ein Geflecht gesellschaftlicher Beziehungen, kultureller Erwartungen und gemeinschaftlichen Wissens eingebunden.

Im Mittelpunkt des Vortrags steht der Vergleich von Gemeinschaften, deren Vorstellungen von Person und Identität unterschiedlich geprägt sind. Während in manchen kulturellen Kontexten eher autonome Personenkonzepte vorherrschen, bei denen die Eigenständigkeit des Individuums betont wird, stehen in anderen relationale Personenkonzepte im Vordergrund, die den Menschen stärker über seine sozialen Beziehungen definieren.

Welche Auswirkungen haben diese unterschiedlichen Vorstellungen auf die Vergabe von Rufnamen? Wer besitzt die Autorität, einen Namen zu bestimmen? Welche Informationen, Zugehörigkeiten und Erwartungen werden durch die Benennung mit einer Person verknüpft?

Über diese kulturvergleichenden Fragen hinaus verfolgt der Vortrag ein grundlegendes theoretisches Anliegen: Lässt sich trotz der Vielfalt kultureller Namenpraktiken ein gemeinsames epistemisches Prinzip der Namengebung erkennen?

Damit berührt das Kolloquium zentrale Themen der modernen Namenforschung: die soziale Funktion von Eigennamen, das Verhältnis von Sprache und Identität sowie die Rolle gemeinschaftlichen Wissens bei der Konstitution von Personen.

Die Veranstaltung verspricht interessante Impulse für die Anthroponomastik, Soziolinguistik, linguistische Anthropologie und kulturvergleichende Namenforschung.

Veranstaltung auf einen Blick

• Vortrag: „Im Namen der Gemeinschaft – Rufnamen und ihre soziokulturelle Gebundenheit“

• Referentin: Inga Siegfried-Schupp

• Termin: Montag, 16. November 2026

• Uhrzeit: 18:30 Uhr

• Format: Online-Kolloquium

• Veranstalter: Gesellschaft für Namenforschung (GfN)

Anmeldung: Zum Online-Anmeldeformular

Die Anmeldung ist weiterhin möglich. Der Anmeldelink darf ausdrücklich auch an Studierende weitergegeben werden.

One Name, Two Homes: A Cross-Cultural Guide to Biblical Names in Germany and the United States

Book

 Introducing One Name, Two Homes: A Cross-Cultural Guide to Biblical Names in Germany and the United States

Who was Noah?

Almost everyone knows the answer. Noah built the ark, survived the Flood and became one of the most recognisable figures in biblical history. But what if I told you that the Bible also mentions a woman named Noah? She was one of the five daughters of Zelophehad who challenged the inheritance customs of ancient Israel, arguing that their father's property should not disappear from the family simply because he had no sons (Numbers 27). The two names, although identical in English spelling, actually represent different Hebrew names with distinct linguistic origins.

This small discovery captures something that has always fascinated me as an onomastician: behind a familiar name, there may be an entirely unfamiliar story.

And this is precisely the world I wanted to explore in my book, One Name, Two Homes: A Cross-Cultural Guide to Biblical Names in Germany and the United States.

When Names Cross the Atlantic

Imagine two children born on the same day, one in Germany and the other in the United States. Their parents decide to give them a biblical name. The American child is called John; the German child, Johannes. Both names ultimately derive from the Hebrew Yôḥānān, traditionally interpreted as “God is gracious.” Both are connected to the same biblical tradition. Yet their pronunciation, historical development and patterns of popularity tell rather different cultural stories. The same fascinating relationship appears in other familiar pairs:

Mary and Maria. Jacob and Jakob. Rachel and Rahel. Leah and Lea. Elizabeth and Elisabeth.

Some names cross linguistic borders almost unchanged. Others undergo remarkable phonetic and orthographic transformations. Still others become fashionable in one country while remaining relatively uncommon in the other. Why should this happen? After all, Germans and Americans have inherited much of the same biblical tradition. Yet they have not inherited identical naming cultures. Religious history, migration, linguistic preferences, changing fashions and family traditions have all shaped the ways biblical names are adopted and transmitted. Names, in this sense, are cultural travellers. They carry their histories with them, but they also adapt to their new homes.

More Than Two Thousand Names, More Than Two Thousand Stories

The book brings together over 2,000 entries, covering the names of prominent biblical figures as well as individuals whose existence is recorded in little more than a single genealogical verse. Alongside familiar names such as Abraham, Sarah, David, Daniel, Esther, Mary and Paul, readers encounter names that rarely appear in contemporary naming discussions. Some belong to kings and prophets. Others identify soldiers, priests, servants, women, tribal leaders and otherwise little-known figures preserved in biblical genealogies.

These names raise an intriguing question: why do certain biblical names become part of the everyday vocabulary of entire cultures, while others remain almost completely forgotten? Consider Aaron, for example. The name has retained essentially the same spelling in English and German, but its pronunciation and contemporary frequency differ considerably. Or take Eve and Eva, two forms associated with the same foundational biblical narrative but shaped by different linguistic traditions. Then there is Jacob and Jakob, whose history also connects with the wider name family that includes James. Such examples remind us that a dictionary of biblical names is not merely a catalogue of ancient characters. It is also a record of how languages transform inherited cultural material.

From Ancient Scripture to Modern Statistics

One of my main objectives was to bring together two approaches that are often treated separately: historical onomastics and contemporary name statistics. For each name, the book explores its linguistic background and biblical context, while also examining its reception in Germany and the United States. The longer entries combine etymological explanations, biblical narratives, cultural interpretation, pronunciation guidance and demographic comparisons.

Historical popularity charts add another dimension by tracing naming trends across generations. The American comparisons draw primarily on Social Security Administration name statistics, while the German material relies on established German name-statistical resources, supplemented by cautious historical estimates where complete data are unavailable.

The result is an opportunity to observe a remarkable phenomenon: names originating in ancient Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek and Latin traditions continue to participate in contemporary naming fashions. A name may be thousands of years old and still experience a new period of popularity. Its history is ancient. Its social life is not.

A Personal Perspective: Karen, Karin, Anna and Elisabeth

I was particularly pleased that the book could begin with an essay by Karen Lodder, writer and creator of German Girl in America. Karen approaches biblical names not primarily through linguistic classification, but through personal and family experience. She reflects on growing up with a name that moves between the German and American pronunciation traditions: Karen and Karin. She also explores the significance of Anne, Anna, Hanna, Elisabeth and Elizabeth within her own family history.

Her reflections provide a valuable reminder that a name is never simply an entry in a dictionary. It may connect several generations, commemorate a beloved relative or preserve a family's relationship with a language that is no longer spoken every day. For immigrant families especially, choosing a name can mean negotiating between two cultural worlds. A name must sometimes feel equally at home in two languages. That observation inspired the central metaphor of the book's title: one name, two homes.

What Can Biblical Names Tell Us About Ourselves?

It would be easy to regard biblical names as a subject belonging primarily to religious history. But their influence reaches far beyond the boundaries of religious communities. Biblical names have become part of secular naming traditions, international migration histories, literary cultures and modern demographic developments. Many parents who choose names such as Noah, Sarah, Elias or David may be attracted principally by their sound, familiarity or perceived timelessness rather than by their biblical associations.

And yet the older linguistic and cultural histories remain. This is what makes biblical anthroponymy such a rewarding field of study. A single name can connect an ancient manuscript to a modern birth register, a Hebrew etymology to a German pronunciation, or an American family tradition to centuries of European migration. The same form may carry different associations across cultures, while two visibly different forms may preserve an identical historical origin. The relationship between names and identities is therefore neither simple nor static. It is a continuing conversation between the past and the present.

An Invitation to Explore

One Name, Two Homes is intended for more than one kind of reader.

For onomasticians and linguists, it offers comparative material on name forms, etymology and cultural adaptation. For genealogists and historians, it provides a way of following familiar family names into their earlier linguistic and biblical contexts. For readers interested in religion, it brings together well-known and overlooked figures from biblical narratives. And for parents considering a name for their child, it offers something beyond lists of fashionable choices: an opportunity to discover the stories that names carry. Ultimately, the book grew from a simple conviction that has guided much of my onomastic research:

Names are small linguistic forms with extraordinarily long biographies.

They survive migrations, religious transformations, changes of alphabet, shifting fashions and the passing of generations. They may change their spelling, pronunciation or popularity, but they continue to connect people to histories they do not always realise they share. And sometimes, as with Noah, the most familiar name turns out to have a story we have never heard before.

---

About the Book

Title: One Name, Two Homes: A Cross-Cultural Guide to Biblical Names in Germany and the United States

Series: Biblical Names Encyclopedia

Author: Dr. Eugen Schochenmaier

Opening essay: Karen Lodder, writer and creator of German Girl in America

First edition: July 2026

Contents: Over 2,000 biblical-name entries, with English–German comparisons, etymologies, pronunciation guidance, biblical and cultural background, illustrations and comparative name statistics.

For further discussion: Which biblical names have travelled most successfully between languages and cultures - and which have remained unmistakably local?

Call for Papers: Birth-Order Name Series across Languages and Cultures – SLE 2027

non official poster / AI-illustration

A proposed workshop entitled “Birth-Order Name Series across Languages and Cultures” is planned for the 2027 conference of the Societas Linguistica Europaea (SLE), taking place on 25–28 August 2027 in Košice, Slovakia. The workshop seeks to advance the cross-linguistic study of naming systems in which children receive names or labels according to their order of birth.

The deadline for preliminary abstracts is 10 November 2026.

Birth-Order Names: Towards a Cross-Linguistic Typology

In numerous linguistic communities worldwide, personal names are not assigned solely according to individual or family preferences. Instead, some languages employ systematic sets of names determined by a child's position among siblings. Known as birth-order names (BONs) or kin numeratives, these naming systems have been documented across North America, Sub-Saharan Africa, Southeast Asia, New Guinea and Australia.

Despite their geographical diversity, birth-order name series remain relatively understudied in linguistic typology and morphosyntax. The proposed workshop aims to develop a comparative framework for understanding their structural, semantic and anthropological characteristics, bringing together research in onomastics, linguistic anthropology, morphology and cross-linguistic semantics.

Key Research Questions

The workshop welcomes contributions exploring four principal dimensions:

• Morphological strategies: How are birth-order names formed? Are they derived from numerals, comparative expressions or kinship terms, or do they constitute independent lexical paradigms?

• Gender distinctions: Do languages employ gender-neutral names, separate male and female series, or systems combining shared roots with gender markers?

• Series size and composition: How many birth-order names can a system contain, and what happens when the number of children exceeds the available names? How does language contact influence these systems?

• Anthropological functions: How do birth-order names relate to kinship structures, age hierarchies, inheritance, lineage and forms of address?

The organisers particularly encourage comparative contributions covering different language families and geographical areas, including Siouan languages of North America, Atlantic, Mande and Gur languages of West Africa, languages of the Nuba Mountains, Southeast Asian language families, languages of New Guinea and Pama-Nyungan languages of Australia.

By integrating evidence from diverse linguistic traditions, the workshop aims to establish birth-order names as a distinct category in nominal typology and stimulate further interdisciplinary research.

Submission Guidelines

Researchers are invited to submit a preliminary abstract of no more than 100 words by 10 November 2026. Submissions should include four to five keywords, institutional affiliation and email address.

If the workshop proposal is accepted, contributors will be invited to submit an extended 500-word abstract by 15 January 2027.

The working language of the workshop is English. Contributions addressing individual languages, language families or broader theoretical and comparative questions are welcome, with preference given to studies offering a wider typological perspective.

Important Dates

• Preliminary abstract deadline: 10 November 2026

• Extended abstract deadline (if accepted): 15 January 2027

• SLE 2027 Conference: 25–28 August 2027

• Location: Košice, Slovakia

Submission and Contact

Preliminary abstracts should be sent to both workshop convenors:

• etienne.baudel@ehess.fr

• woutervanbeek@hetnet.nl