Saturday, September 5, 2026

Les noms comme archives vivantes des langues : retour sur le XXIe Colloque d’onomastique de Rennes

 Du 3 au 5 septembre 2026, l’Université Rennes 2 a accueilli le XXIe Colloque d’onomastique, organisé conjointement par le CELTIC-BLM et la Société française d’Onomastique (SFO). Le programme réunissait vingt-sept communications - 28 auteurs au total - autour de deux axes étroitement liés : « Onomastique et langues régionales » et « Richesse onomastique de la Bretagne ». La manifestation s’est déroulée à l’amphithéâtre T du campus Villejean.

L’ouverture officielle, le 3 septembre, fut assurée par Jérôme Eneau, vice-président Recherche et Valorisation de Rennes 2, Stéphane Gendron, président de la Société française d’Onomastique, et Erwan Hupel, directeur du CELTIC-BLM.

Quelques jours après la clôture, un constat s’impose cependant. Une recherche ciblée dans les pages universitaires, bases bibliographiques, blogs, médias régionaux et contenus publics indexés de LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, X et Bluesky n’a pas permis de retrouver de véritable compte rendu post-colloque, de reportage photographique substantiel ou de synthèse des discussions. Le colloque est beaucoup plus visible sur Internet par les annonces qui ont précédé sa tenue que par les publications qui l’ont suivie.

Cette absence ne signifie évidemment pas que rien n’a été publié dans des comptes privés ou des espaces non indexés. Mais, au 9 septembre 2026, la documentation publique disponible permet surtout de reconstituer la portée scientifique de la rencontre à partir du programme, de l’appel à communications et, pour plusieurs intervenants, de leurs travaux déjà publiés.

Et cette reconstruction révèle un colloque remarquablement cohérent.



Un programme construit autour d’une idée forte

L’appel à communications formulait clairement le présupposé scientifique de la rencontre : l’onomastique ne peut être dissociée du contexte géolinguistique dans lequel les noms se sont formés. Les toponymes conservent l’histoire linguistique des territoires ; les anthroponymes transmettent eux aussi des indices sur l’origine culturelle et linguistique des communautés. Les noms peuvent préserver des traits lexicaux, phonétiques ou sémantiques après leur disparition de la langue courante et devenir ainsi des témoins d’états linguistiques anciens.

Il ne s’agissait donc pas simplement de rechercher « l’étymologie » de différents noms. Au fil des trois journées, les communications ont plutôt abordé une question commune :

Que devient un nom lorsque la langue qui l’a créé change, recule, entre en contact avec une autre langue ou cesse d’être comprise par ses propres locuteurs ?


I. Quand le nom survit à la langue : l’espace gallo-roman

La première journée, entièrement consacrée à « Onomastique et langues régionales dans l’espace gallo-roman », permettait d’observer ce phénomène à différentes échelles : microtoponymie, noms de famille, odonymie, littérature et dialectologie.

Caroline Calvet - La microtoponymie de l’Aubrac : transparence formelle pour le linguiste et opacité sémantique pour l’usager

Le titre résume l’un des paradoxes les plus intéressants de l’onomastique. Un toponyme peut continuer à être prononcé quotidiennement alors que son sens originel est devenu opaque à ceux qui l’emploient. Le linguiste, grâce à la dialectologie et à la comparaison historique, peut parfois reconnaître dans cette forme devenue incompréhensible un lexème ou un trait phonétique ancien.

La communication s’inscrit dans les recherches de Caroline Calvet sur l’Aubrac, le territoire, les pratiques linguistiques et le patrimoine toponymique. Il serait toutefois imprudent, faute de résumé post-colloque, d’attribuer à son intervention des conclusions plus précises que celles indiquées par son titre.

Isabelle Collomb - Les lieux d’accueil des voyageurs dans la toponymie occitane

Ici, nous disposons de davantage de contexte. La thèse d’Isabelle Collomb, soutenue en 2024, porte sur plus de 10 000 toponymes et microtoponymes des Causses du Quercy. Son organisation thématique comprend précisément les lieux d’accueil, à côté de l’hydronymie, de la vigne, des frontières ou de la zootoponymie.

Sa communication de Rennes paraît donc avoir extrait de ce vaste corpus une catégorie fonctionnelle particulièrement révélatrice : les noms associés aux auberges, relais, étapes, passages et autres lieux permettant de recevoir ou de faire circuler les voyageurs. Ce sont les traces linguistiques d’une géographie sociale ancienne, autant que d’une géographie physique.

Francescu Maria Luneschi - Toponymie orale, toponymie officielle et traitement de la variation diamésique en Corse : l’exemple de la commune de Piana

Avec Piana, le problème n’est plus seulement celui du sens, mais celui de la coexistence entre un nom dit et un nom écrit. La notion de variation diamésique renvoie précisément à la différence entre les canaux de transmission : oralité, écriture, cartographie ou administration.

Le titre suggère ainsi une confrontation entre le patrimoine toponymique transmis oralement en corse et les formes fixées ou normalisées par les institutions. Le nom n’est plus une unité immobile : il possède des variantes dépendant de ceux qui le prononcent, l’écrivent ou l’enregistrent.

Joan Peytavi Deixona - Patronyme et identité en Catalogne française

Le cas catalan déplace l’observation vers l’anthroponymie. Les recherches antérieures de Joan Peytavi Deixona ont précisément étudié les problématiques patronymiques de la Catalogne du Nord et la francisation des noms de famille entre les XVe et XXIe siècles.

Dans une région où l’histoire du français et du catalan s’entrecroise, le patronyme peut devenir beaucoup plus qu’un identifiant administratif : il constitue parfois la dernière forme quotidiennement visible d’une langue familiale ou territoriale.

Vincent Rivière - Vigne et toponymie, œnomastique et vins : une culture en bouche

Cette communication ouvrait le colloque à ce que l’on pourrait appeler le paysage nommé de la viticulture. Les noms de parcelles, domaines, terroirs, crus et vins forment des chaînes onomastiques dans lesquelles paysage, production agricole, marketing et mémoire culturelle se rencontrent.

Le titre seul ne permet pas de reconstruire les exemples précis présentés à Rennes ; il révèle cependant l’intérêt d’associer toponymie et œnomastique plutôt que de considérer séparément le lieu et le produit qui en porte le nom.

Samira Bahej - L’onomastique symbolique et territoriale dans l’œuvre de Jean Giono

Avec Giono, le colloque passait du territoire réel au territoire littéraire. Les noms chez un écrivain peuvent fonctionner comme références géographiques, mais également comme instruments de symbolisation. Ils organisent un espace narratif et lui donnent une identité.

L’intérêt de cette communication tenait ainsi à rappeler que l’onomastique régionale ne se limite pas aux cartes, cadastres et archives : la littérature transforme elle aussi les paysages en systèmes de noms.

Les six premières communications formaient les trois premières sessions de la journée.

Gérard Taverdet - La Chaux, un nom de lieu entre la toponymie et la dialectologie

Le titre de Gérard Taverdet plaçait presque littéralement le nom à la frontière entre les deux disciplines qui structuraient le colloque. Un type toponymique ne peut être compris uniquement par la comparaison de formes écrites : sa distribution et ses variantes dialectales peuvent être indispensables à son interprétation.

Stéphane Gendron - L’onomastique dans les glossaires de parler tourangeaux

Stéphane Gendron choisissait quant à lui une source souvent sous-exploitée : les glossaires dialectaux. Ceux-ci peuvent conserver des appellatifs et des formes locales permettant d’éclairer des toponymes devenus opaques.

La communication paraît ainsi avoir démontré l’utilité réciproque de deux traditions documentaires : le glossaire dialectal explique parfois le nom, tandis que le nom propre témoigne parfois d’un mot que le parler vivant a perdu.

Jean-Claude Bouvier - Formations dialectales dans l’odonymie : l’exemple de Marseille

Enfin, Jean-Claude Bouvier transportait cette dialectologie des noms jusque dans l’espace urbain. L’odonymie marseillaise offre un terrain particulièrement riche pour observer ce qui subsiste des formations régionales dans les noms des rues, voies et quartiers.

Ces trois interventions clôturaient la première journée.

Une idée se dessinait déjà : un nom peut rester en usage beaucoup plus longtemps que le mot ou la langue qui l’a produit.


II. Du Grand Est au Yucatán et au Maghreb : les noms au contact des langues

Le 4 septembre, l’échelle du colloque changea radicalement. Après deux communications françaises, les sessions intitulées « Onomastique et langues régionales dans le monde » conduisirent les participants de la Belgique au Mexique, de la Guinée équatoriale à Fès et au monde amazigh.

Michel Tamine - Quelques agrotoponymes champardennais

Les agrotoponymes constituent une mémoire particulièrement concrète des pratiques agricoles : cultures, usages du sol, formes de parcelles, végétation ou techniques anciennes peuvent rester lexicalisées dans les noms longtemps après leur disparition du paysage.

La communication de Michel Tamine rappelait ainsi que la toponymie constitue aussi une documentation sur l’histoire économique et rurale des territoires.

Maryna Darafeyenka - La richesse sémantique des toponymes urbains du Grand Est

Maryna Darafeyenka déplaçait cette approche du monde rural vers la ville. La « richesse sémantique » annoncée par le titre suggère une analyse des motivations et des strates de nomination dans l’espace urbain du Grand Est.

Faute de publication retrouvée correspondant exactement à la communication rennaise, il faut néanmoins éviter d’inventer le corpus ou les catégories qu’elle aurait présentés.

Pierre-Olivier Pire - L’onomastique flamande comme vecteur de l’affirmation identitaire belge dans La Légende d’Ulenspiegel de Charles De Coster

Avec De Coster, le nom flamand entre dans une construction littéraire de l’identité belge. L’onomastique y devient non seulement réaliste ou pittoresque, mais idéologique : choisir et organiser des noms permet d’inscrire un récit dans un paysage culturel particulier et d’affirmer une appartenance.

Yolanda Guillermina López Franco - Comparaison des langues dans les prénoms les plus attribués en France et au département de l’Ille-et-Vilaine en 2021 : identités plurielles

Cette communication introduisait une approche quantitative de l’anthroponymie contemporaine. À partir des prénoms les plus attribués en 2021, elle comparait la situation nationale française à celle de l’Ille-et-Vilaine. L’enjeu indiqué par le sous-titre - « identités plurielles » - est fondamental : le répertoire prénominal contemporain est désormais constitué de couches linguistiques diverses. Le choix d’un prénom peut refléter tradition régionale, circulation internationale, héritage migratoire, culture médiatique ou choix esthétique.

Les quatre communications occupaient les sessions 5 et le début de la session 6.

José Armando San Martín Gómez - Vers une approche de l’anthroponymie de la péninsule de Yucatán au XIXe siècle : les noms de famille en langue maya

La communication de José Armando San Martín Gómez s’inscrit dans un programme de recherche bien documenté sur l’anthroponymie historique de l’Amérique hispanique. Il a notamment étudié les noms propres dans les documents coloniaux du Honduras et du Haut-Pérou.

Le Yucatán ajoutait à cette perspective la question spécifique des patronymes mayas au XIXe siècle : permanence d’un système anthroponymique autochtone à l’intérieur d’un environnement administratif hispanophone, transformations graphiques éventuelles et articulation entre langue, identité et documentation officielle.

Les détails de ces mécanismes devront toutefois attendre la publication éventuelle du texte.

Adeline Darrigol - Politique linguistique et évolution de l’anthroponymie en Guinée équatoriale

Pour Adeline Darrigol, le rapport entre noms et pouvoir est particulièrement explicite. Ses publications antérieures démontrent comment la colonisation espagnole imposa l’espagnol dans l’enseignement, l’administration et la justice, tandis que les politiques postérieures à l’indépendance conduisirent notamment à l’africanisation de toponymes et d’anthroponymes.

Sa communication rennaise semble donc avoir déplacé vers l’anthroponymie une question qu’elle avait déjà étudiée en toponymie : comment l’État agit-il sur les noms afin de produire ou de réorienter une identité linguistique ?

Le nom apparaît ici comme un objet institutionnel et politique, et non seulement linguistique.

Mohammed Sabri - Les noms propres de lieux de la médina de Fès : entre onomastique urbaine, langues régionales et mémoire linguistique

La médina de Fès offrait un terrain particulièrement approprié au thème général. Un espace urbain ancien peut conserver dans ses noms de rues, quartiers, portes, marchés ou lieux d’activité des couches linguistiques correspondant à différentes périodes de son histoire.

En l’absence de texte retrouvé de cette communication, on peut seulement retenir avec certitude ce que son titre annonce : l’étude des noms de Fès comme mémoire linguistique de la ville.

Warda Ouchmika - Le patrimoine toponymique amazigh (berbère) et pressions linguistiques : processus de transformation au sud du Maroc

C’est l’une des communications pour lesquelles la recherche complémentaire permet d’aller beaucoup plus loin.

Warda Ouchmika a publié en 2024 une étude consacrée aux topolectes et technolectes d’hydronymie dans le patrimoine amazigh du territoire de Bani. Elle y analyse le vocabulaire hydronymique tachelhit du Sud marocain et montre que les noms liés à l’eau et à l’irrigation conservent à la fois un vocabulaire géographique, un vocabulaire technique spécialisé et des références culturelles amazighes.

La question posée à Rennes prend donc une profondeur particulière. Modifier, traduire ou remplacer un toponyme peut signifier bien davantage qu’adopter une nouvelle forme graphique. Ce qui risque de disparaître est parfois un fragment de connaissance collective sur le territoire.

Zied Smat - Les traces de l’oralité dans l’anthroponymie maghrébine : le nom propre, conservatoire paléodialectologique face au contact de langues

Le titre de Zied Smat reprend presque parfaitement le principe théorique qui sous-tendait tout le colloque : le nom propre comme « conservatoire paléodialectologique ».

Une forme anthroponymique transmise oralement peut conserver des traits phonétiques ou morphologiques que les variétés contemporaines ne présentent plus. Les contacts de langues ajoutent ensuite de nouvelles adaptations, transcriptions et réinterprétations.

Les cinq communications internationales de l’après-midi complétaient ainsi un ensemble remarquablement cohérent.

La deuxième journée montrait surtout ceci : les noms constituent l’un des endroits où le contact linguistique devient visible.


III. La Bretagne : non pas un cas particulier, mais un laboratoire

La troisième journée était entièrement consacrée à la « Richesse onomastique de la Bretagne ». Le choix était logique : la Bretagne offre un territoire où les rapports entre breton, gallo et français, mais aussi entre oralité et administration, christianisation et traditions plus anciennes, ont produit une stratification onomastique exceptionnelle.

L’appel au colloque avait d’ailleurs explicitement placé la Bretagne au centre du deuxième axe scientifique.

Philippe Brun - Le bassin de la Vilaine. Un aperçu d’hydronymie régionale

La journée commençait logiquement par l’eau. Les hydronymes appartiennent souvent aux couches les plus anciennes de la nomenclature d’un territoire et peuvent résister durant des siècles aux changements de langue.

L’expression prudente « un aperçu » indique que Philippe Brun proposait vraisemblablement un inventaire ou une typologie introductive du bassin de la Vilaine ; le programme ne permet cependant pas d’aller davantage dans le détail.

Alexandre Le Gall - Toponymie et langues régionales : de la nécessaire prise en compte du facteur humain qui singularise la dynamique des toponymes

Cette communication porte peut-être l’un des titres les plus théoriques du programme.

Le toponyme ne « change » pas seul. Ce sont des individus, familles, administrations, cartographes, municipalités et communautés linguistiques qui le transmettent, l’adaptent, l’oublient ou le remplacent.

Introduire le « facteur humain » signifie donc replacer la variation toponymique dans une sociolinguistique du nom.

Jacki Pilon - Les noms des champs, mémoire d’un Territoire. Une recherche collective dans deux communes du Trégor

La microtoponymie rurale constituait ici une forme d’histoire locale collective. Les noms de champs peuvent conserver la mémoire de l’usage ancien des sols, d’anciens propriétaires, du relief, de végétaux, de bâtiments ou de pratiques agricoles oubliées.

Mais la dimension la plus intéressante du titre est peut-être « une recherche collective » : l’enquête onomastique devient aussi une pratique de patrimoine participatif. Les habitants ne sont plus seulement les « informateurs » du chercheur ; ils participent à la sauvegarde de leur propre paysage nommé.

Les trois communications ouvraient la huitième session du colloque.

Frédéric Hérembert - En quoi la francisation menace-t-elle la toponymie celtique de la Bretagne ?

Cette communication peut être replacée avec précision dans les travaux antérieurs de son auteur. Frédéric Hérembert a déjà publié une étude intitulée « La disparition des toponymes bretons, prélude à un appauvrissement culturel majeur », consacrée aux transformations et à la disparition des formes toponymiques traditionnelles.

Ainsi, sa question rennaise ne semble pas seulement étymologique. Elle touche directement à la transmission patrimoniale : que perd-on lorsque la forme traditionnelle d’un nom est remplacée par une forme adaptée aux habitudes graphiques ou phonétiques françaises ?

Nicolas Buanic - En quoi la toponymie celto-bretonne a-t-elle enrichi le vocabulaire français ?

Nicolas Buanic inversait immédiatement la perspective précédente.

Il ne s’agissait plus de demander ce que le français avait fait aux noms bretons, mais ce que le breton avait apporté au français. Avec Serge Buanic, il a publié Les mots bretons dans la langue française : ce que le français doit au breton à travers 170 mots, ouvrage répertorié dans la bibliographie linguistique du breton.

Le programme mettait donc opportunément côte à côte deux mouvements historiques : pression du français sur le patrimoine toponymique breton et enrichissement du français par le breton.

Cette juxtaposition évite une représentation trop simple du contact linguistique comme processus exclusivement unidirectionnel.

Gildas Buron - La toponymie gallèse à l’ouest de la limite historique de la langue bretonne : le cas du pays guérandais

Le choix de Gildas Buron est particulièrement solide du point de vue historique. Ses recherches sur l’onomastique guérandaise remontent à plusieurs décennies, notamment son étude très détaillée de la microtoponymie du marais salant guérandais, publiée dans la Nouvelle revue d’onomastique en 1993 et 1994.

Il a également travaillé directement sur l’onomastique de Guérande.

La communication de Rennes paraît donc avoir abordé une question particulièrement intéressante pour la géographie linguistique : que révèle la présence d’éléments gallos au-delà d’une frontière linguistique que l’on pourrait être tenté de considérer comme trop nette ?

Le Pays guérandais devient ainsi un exemple de zone de transition, de contact et de superposition linguistique plutôt qu’une périphérie facilement classable.

Ces trois communications formaient la neuvième session.


IV. Quand les noms de personnes racontent une autre histoire de la Bretagne

La dernière session rapprochait toponymie, anthroponymie et littérature.

Tristan Loarer - « En ur adlenn Lili... » : Plougastel-Daoulas entre toponymes et anthroponymes

La recherche post-colloque apporte ici un élément inédit.

La page professionnelle de Tristan Loarer à l’Université Rennes 2 mentionne explicitement cette communication, les dates du XXIe Colloque et son titre. Plus intéressant encore, elle classe l’intervention parmi les « communications avec actes » et la signale comme « accepté, à venir ».

Cela ne suffit pas à prouver qu’un volume intégral d’actes du colloque paraîtra, ni à déterminer son éditeur ou sa date. Mais c’est à ce jour le meilleur indice public indiquant qu’au moins certains textes issus de Rennes sont destinés à une publication.

Le travail de Loarer autour de Plougastel-Daoulas semble ainsi devoir devenir l’une des premières communications que l’on pourra lire intégralement plutôt que reconstruire à partir de son titre.

Pierre-Yves Quémener - Nos ancêtres bretons portaient-ils des prénoms bretons ?

C’est surtout cette communication que la deuxième recherche permet désormais de documenter beaucoup plus précisément.

Un texte de Pierre-Yves Quémener daté de 2026 porte exactement le même titre. Il étudie le répertoire des noms dans le pays bretonnant entre le Xe et le XVIe siècle. Selon son résumé, les noms d’origine bretonne désignaient encore la grande majorité de la population aux Xe et XIe siècles, avant de reculer progressivement durant le bas Moyen Âge.

Mais le résultat le plus intéressant est ailleurs : les noms francs et les noms de saints qui les remplacent ne sont pas simplement adoptés sous leur forme extérieure. Ils sont fréquemment adaptés et « bretonnisés », ce qui conduit progressivement à la constitution d’un répertoire régional spécifique.

La bibliographie onomastique de Lexilogos référence désormais elle aussi ce travail parmi les nouveautés de 2026.

La question du titre appelle donc une réponse nuancée : oui, les Bretons ont largement porté des noms d’origine bretonne durant le haut Moyen Âge ; ceux-ci reculent ensuite, mais la bretonnité anthroponymique ne disparaît pas brutalement. Elle se déplace vers l’adaptation linguistique des noms importés.

Voilà précisément le type de résultat qui illustre le mieux le thème général du colloque : une langue peut laisser sa marque non seulement dans les noms qu’elle crée, mais dans la manière dont elle transforme ceux qu’elle reçoit.

Cédric Choplin et Myriam Guillevic - Jeux de noms, jeux de Bretons : quand les auteurs de littérature jeunesse en breton jouent avec l’onomastique

Enfin, Cédric Choplin et Myriam Guillevic refermaient le programme en ramenant l’onomastique vers la création contemporaine.

Leur collaboration sur la littérature jeunesse bretonne est bien attestée : ils ont notamment travaillé ensemble sur Littérature jeunesse en breton : d’une sphère l’autre, tandis que les travaux récents de Choplin interrogent les enjeux identitaires de l’écriture jeunesse en langue bretonne.

À Rennes, il s’agissait cette fois du jeu onomastique : noms humoristiques, transparents, allusifs ou culturellement codés dans les œuvres destinées aux jeunes lecteurs.

Ce choix de conclusion était finalement très approprié. Après deux jours et demi consacrés à ce que les noms ont conservé du passé, le colloque se terminait avec des auteurs qui créent aujourd’hui de nouveaux noms en breton.

La session 10 s’acheva à 16 heures avec la conclusion générale du colloque.


V. Ce que les 27 communications avaient en commun

À première vue, il pouvait sembler difficile de réunir dans un seul colloque l’Aubrac, les vignobles, Giono, Marseille, la Flandre littéraire, les patronymes mayas du Yucatán, la Guinée équatoriale, la médina de Fès, le Sud marocain et Plougastel-Daoulas.

Pourtant, le programme révèle au moins cinq fils directeurs.

Premièrement, le nom comme archive linguistique.
Calvet, Taverdet, Gendron, Bouvier, Ouchmika, Smat ou Buron montrent, chacun sur un terrain différent, qu’un nom peut préserver des formes que la langue courante ne conserve plus.

Deuxièmement, le nom comme mémoire du territoire.
Collomb, Tamine, Brun et Pilon mettent en évidence les informations que les noms apportent sur les routes, l’agriculture, les cours d’eau, les champs et les usages humains du paysage.

Troisièmement, le nom comme produit du contact des langues.
Luneschi, Peytavi Deixona, San Martín Gómez, Darrigol, Ouchmika, Smat, Hérembert et Buron travaillent tous, directement ou indirectement, sur ce qui arrive aux noms lorsque plusieurs systèmes linguistiques partagent le même territoire.

Quatrièmement, le nom comme instrument d’identité.
Les patronymes catalans, les prénoms contemporains, les noms mayas, les politiques anthroponymiques de Guinée équatoriale et la toponymie bretonne démontrent que nommer n’est jamais complètement neutre.

Enfin, le nom comme création culturelle.
Bahej, Pire, Rivière, Loarer, Quémener, Choplin et Guillevic rappellent que l’onomastique ne concerne pas uniquement les vestiges d’un passé figé : les systèmes de noms continuent à être produits, remodelés et réinterprétés.


Des noms qui survivent aux mondes qui les ont produits

S’il fallait retenir une seule idée du programme rennais, ce serait peut-être celle-ci :

un nom propre n’est jamais seulement une étiquette.

Il peut contenir un mot disparu.

Il peut conserver une prononciation que plus personne n’emploie ailleurs.

Il peut indiquer où passait un ancien chemin, comment un champ était utilisé ou quelle langue parlait autrefois une communauté.

Il peut être traduit, francisé, hispanisé, normalisé ou réinventé.

Il peut même changer de langue tout en conservant quelque chose de sa forme précédente.

C’est pourquoi l’onomastique apparaît, à travers le programme du XXIe Colloque de Rennes, moins comme une discipline consacrée aux curiosités étymologiques que comme une science de la mémoire linguistique des sociétés.

De l’Aubrac au Yucatán et du Maroc à la Bretagne, ces vingt-sept communications racontaient au fond la même histoire : les langues peuvent reculer ou disparaître, mais leurs noms leur survivent souvent - à condition que nous sachions encore les écouter.


Liens et documents

Sur le colloque : Appel à communications – FELCO, « Onomastique et langues régionales » · Première circulaire du XXIe Colloque – Fabula · Calendrier international des conférences – ICOS · Annonce antérieure sur e-Onomastics · Annonce Alt128.

Travaux directement utiles pour comprendre certaines communications : Tristan Loarer – page professionnelle de Rennes 2 et communication « accepté, à venir » · Pierre-Yves Quémener – « Nos ancêtres bretons portaient-ils des prénoms bretons ? » · Bibliographie onomastique bretonne – Lexilogos · Isabelle Collomb – présentation de la thèse sur la microtoponymie des Causses du Quercy · Warda Ouchmika – « Topolectes et technolectes d’hydronymie dans le patrimoine amazigh » · Adeline Darrigol – travaux sur les identités linguistiques et les toponymes de Guinée équatoriale · José Armando San Martín Gómez – anthroponymie historique du Honduras · Gildas Buron – microtoponymie du marais salant guérandais · Cédric Choplin – page professionnelle Rennes 2.

Wednesday, September 2, 2026

A Name as a Piece of History: Christian Ionescu’s Enciclopedie onomastică Returns in a New Edition

What can a personal name tell us about the history of a language, a religion, migration, cultural fashion or collective memory? Potentially, a great deal. A name may survive for centuries while changing its pronunciation and spelling, moving between languages, acquiring diminutives and regional variants, or losing the meaning that was once transparent to the people who first used it.


This long historical life of personal names lies at the centre of Christian Ionescu’s Enciclopedie onomastică, issued by the Romanian publisher GRAFOART in 2026. The new hardcover volume is presented as a renewed and enriched continuation of Ionescu’s famous Mică enciclopedie onomastică, first published in Bucharest in 1975. Libris lists the new edition at 380 pages, in a 245 × 175 mm format, with ISBN 978-606-747-308-7; GRAFOART’s own bookstore gives 379 pages.

Enciclopedie onomastică at Libris

This point deserves emphasis: the volume should not be presented as an entirely new onomastic dictionary written in 2026. It is the return, revision and editorial reworking of a Romanian onomastic classic whose history extends over half a century. The preview of the present edition identifies Mihail Zemleacov as responsible for the scientific supervision, revision of the text and editing.

From the Small Onomastic Encyclopedia to the Onomastic Encyclopedia

Christian Ionescu’s original Mică enciclopedie onomastică appeared with Editura Enciclopedică Română in 1975. A contemporary scholarly review by Gabriel Vasiliu in Cercetări de lingvistică described it essentially as a dictionary of Romanian given names, accompanied by an introductory study intended to familiarize a broad readership with questions of onomastics. The dictionary incorporated both highly frequent and relatively rare names.

The book was sufficiently important to be reprinted in Chișinău in 1993 by Știința, explicitly as a reprint of the 1975 Bucharest edition. More importantly, it never disappeared from Romanian onomastic scholarship. It continues to occur in the bibliographies of studies on Romanian personal names, alongside such foundational works as N. A. Constantinescu’s Dicționar onomastic românesc, Alexandru Graur’s Nume de persoane and later studies of Romanian anthroponymy.

The 2026 publication therefore represents not merely the reappearance of an old dictionary, but the reopening of an important chapter in the history of Romanian onomastic lexicography.

There is also an interesting bibliographical detail. GRAFOART currently offers a smaller-format volume preserving the historical title Mică Enciclopedie Onomastică, while the larger hardcover linked here is entitled simply Enciclopedie Onomastică. Both previews credit Mihail Zemleacov with scientific supervision and textual revision. The smaller edition is listed at 486 pages because of its more compact page format.

Not an encyclopedia of every kind of name

The broad title Enciclopedie onomastică might initially suggest a general encyclopedia covering place names, surnames, nicknames, ethnonyms and other classes of proper names. Its actual centre of gravity is more specific: Romanian anthroponymy, and above all given names.

That was already the purpose of the 1975 work, and the description of the present edition again explains that the dictionary seeks not merely to inventory Romanian given names but to place them in a broad European, historical and cultural context.

This distinction is important. Ionescu’s achievement lies not in attempting to catalogue every possible category of proper name, but in following the extraordinary historical trajectories of the names by which people have been called in Romanian-speaking society.

What does an entry contain?

The new edition is organized as a substantial alphabetical dictionary, preceded by an Argument and a list of abbreviations and followed by a general index of name variants. The latter includes masculine and feminine forms, diminutives and regional variants. According to the edition’s description, individual articles can incorporate the etymology of a name, early attestations, corresponding forms in other languages, legends and customs, as well as notable people who have borne it.

This makes the book rather different from the many modern “baby-name dictionaries” that reduce an entry to a language label and a one-line meaning.

For Ionescu, a name has a history.

A form may originate in one linguistic environment, be transmitted through another, enter Romanian through ecclesiastical, literary or popular channels, develop numerous hypocoristics and derivatives, and eventually become so thoroughly naturalized that speakers no longer perceive it as foreign.

The dictionary therefore allows one to move simultaneously through etymology, historical linguistics, cultural history, religion and social history.

Romanian names as layers of European history

One of the strengths of Ionescu’s approach is its refusal to treat the Romanian name stock as culturally homogeneous.

A contemporary 1975 presentation of the first edition by literary critic Laurențiu Ulici drew attention to precisely this diversity. He mentioned old and newer names, extremely frequent and relatively rare ones, and names of different historical origins: for example Decebal, Maxim, Lucreția, Ludovic, Otilia, Dumitru, Eufrosina, Vlad and Olga.

Behind such an inventory lies a much larger history. Romanian anthroponymy contains successive and overlapping strata associated with the ancient Balkans, Latin, Greek and Christianity, Slavonic ecclesiastical traditions, neighbouring peoples, Western European languages and later cultural fashions.

The history of Romanian naming consequently becomes a compact history of cultural contact.

Ionescu’s broader scholarly work confirms that this historical dimension was not simply a popularizing device for the encyclopedia. He subsequently investigated the Romanian anthroponymic system theoretically, including its historical organization and the development of the highly characteristic Romanian suffix -escu. His studies on the Romanian anthroponymic system and on -escu remain cited in later specialist literature.

Names can preserve what ordinary vocabulary loses

One reason such a book matters beyond the question “What does my name mean?” is that proper names are unusually durable linguistic objects.

Later scholarship citing Ionescu has emphasized precisely this point: names can preserve phonetic, morphological and lexical material from older linguistic stages even after comparable forms have disappeared from ordinary vocabulary. They can therefore provide evidence about cultural and linguistic history much as other historical sources do.

This persistence becomes particularly fascinating in Romanian because personal naming has repeatedly been reshaped by religious and cultural change. Christianization, the medieval prestige of Greek and Slavonic ecclesiastical forms, contacts with neighbouring naming systems and later Western influences all contributed to the changing repertoire.

A name such as Christian/Cristian, for example, connects Romanian usage to Latin Christianus and ultimately to Greek Christos; the old encyclopedia similarly traces Adam through its Hebrew background and discusses the transmission of other Biblical and Christian names.

The value of such entries lies not simply in assigning a “meaning,” but in showing how the name reached Romanian.

A dictionary that can also be read

Perhaps the most unexpected testimony to the original book came not from an onomastician but from literary critic Laurențiu Ulici.

Writing in România literară in 1975, Ulici argued that although Ionescu’s work was unquestionably scientific, many of its articles had something of the structure of a narrated biography. Names are born, travel, change form, flourish in one region and disappear in another. He memorably compared the name’s trajectory to “a life of… a human being.”

That observation still provides one of the best ways of introducing the encyclopedia today.

A good historical name dictionary is not simply a warehouse of etymologies. Each entry can become a miniature story of transmission:

Where did the name begin?
Which language gave it its earliest recognizable form?
Through which cultural or religious channels did it travel?
When does it first appear in Romanian sources?
What variants did Romanian speakers create from it?
Why did some forms survive while others disappeared?

Seen in this way, an onomastic encyclopedia becomes a collection of biographies of names.

A book with a fifty-year scholarly afterlife

The durability of Mică enciclopedie onomastică is itself noteworthy. Gabriel Vasiliu reviewed it academically in the year of publication. Ulici discussed it in the national literary press. It was later reprinted in Moldova. Decades afterwards, it continued to be cited in studies dealing with the historical anthroponymy of Romania, name formation and the origins of Romanian personal and place names.

That history alone explains why a new edition is worth noticing.

It also distinguishes the book from newly assembled popular name dictionaries: it represents a particular tradition of Romanian onomastic scholarship.

How new is the 2026 edition?

Here some scholarly caution is necessary.

The publisher and booksellers explicitly state that the present work revisits and enriches the 1975 Mică Enciclopedie Onomastică, while the preview identifies Mihail Zemleacov as responsible for scientific control and textual revision.

However, the publicly accessible material does not provide a systematic apparatus explaining, entry by entry, what has been added, removed or etymologically reconsidered. It would therefore be premature to claim, for example, that every etymology has been brought fully into line with fifty years of subsequent research, or that present-day Romanian name frequencies have been comprehensively updated.

For an introductory blog post, the safest characterization is consequently: a newly revised and editorially renewed edition of a classic Romanian onomastic reference work.

That is already significant enough.

Why this book deserves renewed attention

The publication arrives at an interesting moment. Names today circulate internationally more rapidly than ever before. Romanian parents encounter English, Italian, Spanish, French, Biblical, revived historical and globally mediated naming fashions almost simultaneously. Migration has also made the Romanian anthroponymic repertoire increasingly transnational.

Against that background, Ionescu’s historical method provides a useful corrective to the idea that “foreign” and “Romanian” names form two simple opposing categories. Romanian naming history has always been built through contact, borrowing, adaptation and reinterpretation.

A name can be ancient without having originated in Romanian.

It can be foreign in etymology but thoroughly Romanian in its historical development.

It can arrive through Greek, Slavonic, Hungarian, German, French or another language and generate forms that belong specifically to Romanian usage.

And a diminutive or regional form may tell us as much about Romanian linguistic creativity as the remote etymon from which the name ultimately descends.

That is perhaps the enduring lesson of Christian Ionescu’s encyclopedia: the history of names is never only the history of words. It is also the history of the people and cultures through which those words have travelled.

More than fifty years after its first appearance, Enciclopedie onomastică therefore deserves to be rediscovered not merely as a dictionary for checking the “meaning” of a first name, but as a map of the linguistic and cultural history encoded in Romanian anthroponymy.

Bibliographical reference: Christian Ionescu, Enciclopedie onomastică. Scientific supervision, textual revision and editing by Mihail Zemleacov. Bucharest: GRAFOART, 2026. ISBN 978-606-747-308-7. Libris lists 380 pages; the GRAFOART bookstore lists 379.

For readers wishing to explore further: the Libris edition page · GRAFOART/Librăria Muzicală book page · digital preview of the new edition · Gabriel Vasiliu's 1975 scholarly review.


Versiunea română

Numele ca fragment de istorie: Enciclopedia onomastică a lui Christian Ionescu revine într-o nouă ediție

Ce ne poate spune un prenume despre istoria unei limbi, despre religie, migrație, mode culturale sau memoria colectivă? Uneori, surprinzător de mult. Un nume poate supraviețui secole întregi, schimbându-și pronunția și grafia, trecând dintr-o limbă în alta, dezvoltând forme diminutivale și regionale sau pierzând sensul care fusese transparent pentru primii săi purtători.

Această lungă viață istorică a numelor se află în centrul volumului Enciclopedie onomastică de Christian Ionescu, publicat de GRAFOART în 2026. Ediția cartonată este prezentată ca o reluare și îmbogățire a cunoscutei Mici enciclopedii onomastice, apărută pentru prima dată în 1975. Libris indică 380 de pagini, format 245 × 175 mm și ISBN 978-606-747-308-7, în timp ce librăria editurii GRAFOART menționează 379 de pagini.

Enciclopedie onomastică pe Libris

Este importantă de la început o precizare: nu avem în față o enciclopedie onomastică redactată de la zero în 2026. Este revenirea, revizuirea și reeditarea unei lucrări clasice a onomasticii românești, cu o istorie de peste o jumătate de secol. Pagina de titlu a noii ediții îl indică pe Mihail Zemleacov pentru „control științific, revizia textului și redactare”.

De la Mica enciclopedie onomastică la Enciclopedie onomastică

Prima ediție a Micei enciclopedii onomastice a apărut la Editura Enciclopedică Română în 1975. Într-o recenzie publicată chiar în acel an în Cercetări de lingvistică, Gabriel Vasiliu o caracteriza, în esență, drept un dicționar de prenume românești, precedat de un studiu menit să familiarizeze publicul larg cu problemele onomasticii. Dicționarul reunea atât prenume foarte frecvente, cât și forme mai rare.

Importanța lucrării este demonstrată și de circulația sa ulterioară. În 1993, cartea a fost republicată la Chișinău de Editura Știința, ca reprint al ediției bucureștene din 1975. Mult mai important însă este faptul că ea nu a dispărut niciodată din bibliografia onomasticii românești. Continuă să fie citată alături de lucrări fundamentale precum Dicționarul onomastic românesc al lui N. A. Constantinescu sau Nume de persoane de Alexandru Graur.

Ediția din 2026 nu reprezintă, așadar, numai reapariția unei cărți vechi, ci reactualizarea unei etape importante din istoria lexicografiei onomastice românești.

Există și o particularitate bibliografică interesantă. GRAFOART comercializează în prezent și un volum de format mai mic, care păstrează titlul istoric Mică Enciclopedie Onomastică. Volumul mai mare, cartonat, despre care vorbim aici se intitulează simplu Enciclopedie Onomastică. Ambele ediții îl indică pe Mihail Zemleacov pentru controlul științific și revizia textului.

O enciclopedie a onomasticii – dar cu centrul în antroponimie

Titlul foarte larg ar putea sugera o enciclopedie care tratează toate clasele de nume proprii: toponime, nume de familie, porecle, etnonime și multe altele.

În realitate, centrul de greutate al lucrării este mai precis: antroponimia românească și, în primul rând, prenumele.

Aceasta era deja orientarea lucrării din 1975, iar prezentarea ediției actuale precizează că scopul nu este numai inventarierea și explicarea prenumelor românești, ci integrarea lor într-un amplu context istoric, european și cultural.

Tocmai aici se află originalitatea cărții: Christian Ionescu nu oferă doar răspunsul rapid „de unde vine numele?”, ci încearcă să reconstituie drumul istoric al numelui până în limba și cultura română.

Cum este construită cartea?

Noua ediție are forma unui dicționar alfabetic amplu, precedat de un Argument și de lista abrevierilor. La final se găsește un Indice general al variantelor de nume, cu forme masculine și feminine, diminutive și variante regionale. Articolele pot cuprinde informații despre etimologie, prime atestări, corespondente în alte limbi, legende și obiceiuri, precum și personalități care au purtat numele respectiv.

Această structură o diferențiază fundamental de numeroasele dicționare populare de prenume care reduc un nume la o origine și la o „semnificație” de câteva cuvinte.

Pentru Christian Ionescu, numele are o biografie.

El se naște într-un anumit spațiu lingvistic, poate trece printr-o altă limbă, poate intra în română pe cale ecleziastică, livrescă sau populară, poate crea zeci de variante, hipocoristice și derivate și poate deveni atât de bine integrat încât vorbitorii să nu-l mai perceapă ca fiind de origine străină.

Prenumele românești ca straturi ale istoriei europene

Una dintre calitățile lucrării este faptul că antroponimia românească nu apare ca un sistem omogen și izolat.

În 1975, criticul literar Laurențiu Ulici, prezentând cartea în România literară, atrăgea atenția asupra diversității extraordinare a materialului: nume vechi și noi, foarte frecvente sau rare, provenite din straturi istorice diferite. Printre exemplele sale apăreau Decebal, Maxim, Lucreția, Ludovic, Otilia, Dumitru, Eufrosina, Vlad și Olga.

În spatele acestei diversități se află istoria însăși a spațiului românesc: fonduri antice, tradiția latină, greacă și creștină, influența slavonă bisericească, contactele cu popoarele vecine, influențele occidentale și modele culturale moderne.

Istoria prenumelor devine astfel o istorie condensată a contactelor culturale.

Cercetările ulterioare ale lui Christian Ionescu confirmă că această perspectivă istorică nu era doar o strategie de popularizare. Autorul a continuat să studieze sistemul antroponimic românesc, inclusiv organizarea sa medievală și evoluția sufixului atât de caracteristic -escu.

Numele păstrează ceea ce vocabularul poate pierde

Importanța unei asemenea cărți depășește cu mult curiozitatea personală de tipul „ce înseamnă prenumele meu?”.

Numele proprii sunt elemente lingvistice extrem de rezistente. Cercetările ulterioare care îl citează pe Ionescu arată că ele pot conserva particularități fonetice, morfologice sau lexicale din stadii mai vechi ale limbii, chiar atunci când formele corespunzătoare au dispărut din vocabularul comun.

În cazul românei, fenomenul este deosebit de interesant deoarece inventarul prenumelor a fost modificat repetat de schimbări religioase și culturale. Creștinarea, prestigiul formelor grecești și slavone medievale, contactele cu limbile vecine și influențele occidentale au lăsat urme adânci în sistem.

De pildă, Cristian/Christian conduce spre latinescul Christianus și, mai departe, spre grecescul Christos. În vechea enciclopedie, Ionescu urmărea în același mod originea ebraică a lui Adam și traseul istoric al numeroaselor nume biblice și calendaristice.

Importantă nu este numai „traducerea” sensului inițial, ci calea prin care numele a ajuns în limba română.

Un dicționar care se poate și citi

Una dintre cele mai frumoase aprecieri adresate ediției originale nu a venit de la un onomastician, ci de la Laurențiu Ulici.

În România literară, criticul observa că, deși lucrarea lui Ionescu este una științifică, multe dintre articole capătă forma unor mici biografii. Numele se nasc, călătoresc, își schimbă forma, dispar într-un loc și reapar în altul. Ulici vorbea sugestiv despre „o viață de... om” a numelui.

Este poate și astăzi cea mai potrivită modalitate de a prezenta cartea.

Un bun articol onomastic răspunde nu numai la întrebarea despre etimologie, ci la o întreagă succesiune de probleme: unde apare numele? prin ce limbă a circulat? când este documentat în spațiul românesc? ce variante a produs? cum a fost reinterpretat? de ce unele forme au devenit frecvente, iar altele au dispărut?

În acest sens, Enciclopedia onomastică poate fi citită ca o colecție de biografii ale numelor.

O posteritate științifică de peste cincizeci de ani

Puține dicționare destinate inițial și publicului larg au o asemenea longevitate bibliografică.

Cartea a fost recenzată de Gabriel Vasiliu chiar în 1975. A fost prezentată de Laurențiu Ulici în presa literară națională. A fost republicată peste Prut. Și continuă să fie folosită ca sursă în cercetări privind antroponimia istorică, formarea numelor și originea unor nume românești.

Această continuitate explică de ce ediția din 2026 merită semnalată.

Ea nu reprezintă doar încă un dicționar de prenume, ci readuce în circulație o tradiție importantă a cercetării onomastice românești.

Cât de nouă este ediția din 2026?

Aici este necesară o anumită prudență.

Editura și librăriile afirmă explicit că lucrarea actuală reia și îmbogățește Mica Enciclopedie Onomastică din 1975, iar pagina de titlu îl indică pe Mihail Zemleacov pentru controlul științific, revizia textului și redactare.

Materialele accesibile public nu oferă însă, deocamdată, un aparat detaliat care să indice sistematic ce articole au fost modificate, ce etimologii au fost reconsiderate sau ce informații au fost adăugate.

De aceea, nu ar fi justificat să afirmăm fără verificarea integrală a volumului că toate explicațiile din 1975 au fost actualizate conform cercetărilor ultimelor cinci decenii sau că frecvențele prenumelor reflectă în mod complet situația din 2026.

Formula cea mai corectă pentru o prezentare este: o ediție revizuită și editorial reînnoită a unei lucrări clasice a onomasticii românești.

De ce merită cartea redescoperită astăzi?

Prenumele circulă astăzi între țări și limbi mai repede ca niciodată. Părinții din România întâlnesc simultan modele englezești, italiene, spaniole, franceze, biblice, istorice sau internaționale. Migrația a transformat și ea profund repertoriul antroponimic.

Tocmai de aceea perspectiva istorică a lui Christian Ionescu rămâne actuală.

Istoria onomastică românească arată că opoziția simplă dintre „nume românesc” și „nume străin” este adesea artificială. Sistemul prenumelor românești s-a format dintotdeauna prin contact, împrumut, adaptare și reinterpretare.

Un nume poate fi străin prin etimologia sa și profund românesc prin istoria utilizării sale.

Poate ajunge prin greacă, slavonă, maghiară, germană, franceză sau printr-o altă limbă și poate genera în română forme care nu există nicăieri altundeva.

Iar un diminutiv sau o variantă regională poate spune la fel de multe despre creativitatea lingvistică românească precum etimonul îndepărtat al numelui.

Aceasta este poate ideea cea mai importantă pe care noua ediție o readuce în atenție: istoria numelor nu este doar istoria cuvintelor. Este și istoria oamenilor, limbilor și culturilor prin care aceste cuvinte au călătorit.

La mai bine de cincizeci de ani de la prima apariție, Enciclopedia onomastică a lui Christian Ionescu merită, așadar, redescoperită nu doar ca instrument pentru aflarea „semnificației” unui prenume, ci ca o adevărată hartă a memoriei lingvistice și culturale ascunse în antroponimia românească.

Referință bibliografică: Christian Ionescu, Enciclopedie onomastică. Control științific, revizia textului și redactare: Mihail Zemleacov. București: GRAFOART, 2026. ISBN 978-606-747-308-7. Libris indică 380 p.; pagina GRAFOART, 379 p.

Pentru documentare suplimentară: ediția pe Libris · pagina GRAFOART/Librăria Muzicală · previzualizarea ediției noi · recenzia academică a lui Gabriel Vasiliu din 1975

Tuesday, September 1, 2026

Nick, I. M. (ed.). 2026. Names, Naming, Diversity, and Identity in Youth Literature

 A name in a children’s book may look like one of the smallest elements of the story. Yet it can carry an extraordinary amount of information. It can tell readers where a character comes from, which language a family speaks, whether somebody belongs to a community or is treated as an outsider. A name can be deliberately mispronounced, translated, shortened, replaced, reclaimed, invented, hidden, or imposed. In fantasy, it can help construct an entire civilization. In migration literature, it can become a point of tension between heritage and assimilation. For a young protagonist struggling with identity, simply insisting on one’s real name may become an act of agency.


These are the questions at the heart of the newly published volume Names, Naming, Diversity, and Identity in Youth Literature, edited by I. M. Nick and published by Bloomsbury Academic in the series Names and Naming in the Social Sciences and Humanities. The Canadian edition lists the hardback as published on 25 June 2026; the volume has 168 pages, fifteen tables, and seven chapters. Nick is President of the Germanic Society for Forensic Linguistics, Editor-in-Chief of NAMES: A Journal of Onomastics, and a former President of the American Name Society.

Bloomsbury: Names, Naming, Diversity, and Identity in Youth Literature

The publisher places the collection in a particularly contemporary context. Youth literature has become increasingly attentive to ethnic, racial, linguistic, cultural, religious and other forms of diversity, while books dealing positively with difference and group belonging have simultaneously become objects of public controversy and restriction. The volume asks what names and acts of naming contribute to these representations. Its primary geographical emphasis is Anglo-American, something the publisher itself acknowledges, but the conceptual range extends from invented fantasy worlds to migration, Asian American and Latinx experience, multicultural picturebooks and gender diversity.

Because the volume is so new, what follows is best understood as an introduction rather than a conventional book review. For this presentation, I have compared Bloomsbury’s table of contents and book preview with publicly available research by the contributors and with abstracts from the 2026 meeting of the American Name Society. That additional material makes it possible to say considerably more about several chapters than their titles alone would reveal. Three of the book’s contributions, by Sharon N. Obasi, Susan J. Behrens, and Edcel Javier Cintrón-Gonzalez with Adriana De Persia Colón, were in fact presented in closely related form during the ANS session “Diversity in Youth Literature” on 21 February 2026.

From character names to entire imagined cultures

1. Michael Adams — Onomasticon Fantasticum: Names and Cultural Diversity in Fantasy for Young Readers

The opening chapter, by Michael Adams of Indiana University Bloomington, begins with an important distinction. In books for very young children, names frequently work primarily at the level of character: readers encounter and identify with Peter, Alexander, and other individual protagonists. As narrative worlds become more complex, however, names acquire a broader function. They help readers build and navigate fictional worlds. In fantasy, Adams argues, naming becomes especially important because names serve as landmarks in geographical, social and cultural space.

Adams compares three major fantasy traditions: J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter novels, and Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials. His argument is not that all fantasy naming works in the same way. Tolkien’s philological construction of languages makes names part of the deep cultural architecture of Middle-earth; Rowling’s names, in Adams’s reading, tend more often to characterize individuals; Pullman raises more philosophical questions about naming, reference and ontology.

Tolkien provides the clearest demonstration of what literary onomastics can contribute. Elves, dwarves, hobbits and different human populations possess distinctive languages and naming systems. Aragorn, Strider and Elessar, for example, are not merely three labels for the same person: each locates that person differently within a cultural relationship. Adams treats such multiple naming as a way of making cultural difference perceptible to the reader.

It is an excellent choice for the opening chapter because it establishes one of the collection’s central principles: a literary name is not simply decorative vocabulary. It can be part of narrative structure itself.

When migration reaches the personal name

2. Sharon N. Obasi — Whispering Names, Shouting Identities: The Power of Naming in Youth Literature About Immigrants and Immigration

Sharon N. Obasi of the University of Nebraska at Kearney moves from invented worlds to one of the most tangible naming experiences in real life: migration.

Her ANS abstract provides a useful guide to the chapter’s concerns. Personal names, Obasi argues, transmit cultural heritage, family lineage and historical memory. Migration can transform them into sites of negotiation. A migrant may repeatedly encounter mispronunciation or misspelling, feel pressure to adopt a name that is easier for the dominant society, or discover that different transliterations have consequences in official documentation. For asylum seekers, inconsistent name forms can even create legal difficulties.

Youth literature can make these apparently small linguistic experiences visible. Retaining a name, altering it, accepting another form or resisting one can dramatize the larger tension between adaptation and cultural continuity. Obasi’s abstract describes names in the texts she studies as resources for resistance, resilience and transformation.

The chapter therefore raises an important question for literary onomastics: when a fictional immigrant child’s name is made “easier” for others, who is actually being asked to adapt—the name bearer or the surrounding society?

Asian American naming: pride or assimilation?

3. Jung Kim and Sohyun An — Asian American Names in Children’s Literature: Opportunities for Cultural Pride or Promoting Cultural Assimilation?

The question becomes even more explicit in the chapter by Jung Kim of Lewis University and Sohyun An of Kennesaw State University.

The title deliberately presents two possibilities. Can children’s literature use Asian American names to strengthen cultural pride and make minority identities visible? Or can narratives about supposedly “difficult” names unintentionally reproduce the assumption that the child must accommodate the dominant English-speaking environment?

The book preview shows that this is not merely an impressionistic discussion. The chapter contains a table systematically identifying the titles, authors, publishers, publication years and racial/ethnic backgrounds of the principal characters in the corpus examined.

The authors’ backgrounds make this investigation particularly interesting. Jung Kim’s scholarship brings together literacy, race, equity and Asian American children’s and young-adult literature; Sohyun An’s research focuses on K–12 Asian American studies, curriculum and anti-racist social-studies education.

Their chapter belongs to a growing body of research showing that names in Asian American childhood contexts are far from trivial. Earlier scholarship has examined Korean American children negotiating names across home, school and peer environments, while more recent work has connected Asian American naming practices explicitly with experiences of racialization. The new chapter carries that discussion into literary representation.

The question in its title is therefore particularly well chosen. Representation alone does not guarantee inclusion. A book can prominently feature a Korean, Chinese, Vietnamese or other Asian name while still constructing the surrounding culture as the norm to which that name must eventually adjust.

Naming as a resource when other forms of power disappear

4. Susan J. Behrens — Support, Hope, and Strength Through Naming in Fiction for Young Readers: Young Protagonists Harnessing Names to Survive Powerlessness

Susan J. Behrens of Marymount Manhattan College turns to young characters facing poverty, exploitation and other forms of profound social powerlessness.

Her ANS abstract identifies three recurring onomastic strategies. First, related or parallel names can create bonds between characters, providing young protagonists with networks of support. Second, protagonists may rename themselves or adopt monikers that permit them to imagine another identity and another future. Third, characters may reject false or oppressive labels and insist on the names that express their authentic selves.

Behrens has developed closely related arguments in the 2025 article “Naming to Survive in the Face of Powerlessness: Four Case Studies from Fiction for Young Readers,” published in NAMES. There she studies contemporary YA protagonists confronting mental-health crises, HIV/AIDS, the trauma of school shootings and the marginalization of Roma youth, arguing that attention to “true” names can become a literary model for self-advocacy and agency.

That makes this chapter particularly significant for literary onomastics. It moves beyond asking what a fictional name means etymologically and asks what a character can actually do with a name.

A name can create a relationship. A nickname can offer temporary escape. An imposed label can diminish somebody. Reclaiming a name can reverse that relationship of power.

Picturebooks and the first lesson in respecting a name

5. Sally Brown and Nahiris Lugo Munoz — Who Am I? The Storied Worlds of Naming Practices and Identity in Multicultural Children’s Picturebooks

The chapter by Sally Brown and Nahiris Lugo Munoz of Georgia Southern University shifts attention to picturebooks and therefore to some of the youngest readers represented in the collection.

The preview suggests a particularly methodical study. The authors identify selected “naming picturebooks” together with the cultural backgrounds of their authors and illustrators; they develop a Names and Naming Practices Picturebook Evaluation Tool intended to assess accuracy and authenticity; and their analysis includes explicit themes and coding categories.

A newly published companion study helps illuminate why this matters. In “More Than a Name: Identity, Culture, and Representation in Children’s Picturebooks,” Sally Brown, Yáng Wáng and Nahiris Lugo Munoz combine interviews with seven culturally diverse educators with analysis of multicultural picturebooks. They find that names and name stories possess considerable emotional and cultural significance, while mispronunciation and alteration can negatively affect children’s experiences. The authors also discuss books such as Becoming Vanessa and Say My Name as resources for identity affirmation and classroom empathy.

This is an especially productive direction for onomastics. A picturebook about a name does not simply tell children that cultural difference exists. It can model how one responds to another person’s name: whether one listens, learns its pronunciation, asks about its history, or instead tries to replace it with something more familiar.

In that sense, naming literature can provide some of a child’s earliest lessons about linguistic respect.

“My name is not Ivy-Liz”

6. Edcel Javier Cintrón-Gonzalez and Adriana De Persia Colón — My Name Is Not “Ivy-Liz,” It’s “Iveliz”: Naming Practices and Negotiations of Space and Identity in Latinx Youth Literature

The title of the chapter by Edcel Javier Cintrón-Gonzalez of Illinois State University and Adriana De Persia Colón of the University of Cambridge contains its argument in miniature.

Iveliz is not Ivy-Liz.

A seemingly minor act of pronunciation becomes a contest over who has the authority to determine what another person is called.

Fortunately, an ANS abstract by the same authors identifies two of the literary works at the center of their research. In Elizabeth Acevedo’s With the Fire on High, they examine the naming of Emoni, a teenage mother negotiating her future, against histories of erasure and assimilation. In Andrea Beatriz Arango’s verse novel Iveliz Explains It All, the protagonist repeatedly insists on the pronunciation and significance of names rather than making them more “palatable” to the dominant culture.

The authors connect naming with the negotiation of space. That formulation is particularly insightful. Correcting somebody who changes Iveliz into Ivy-Liz is not only a phonetic correction. It is a claim to social space: I do not need to linguistically reshape myself in order to be admitted here.

The chapter therefore shows how literary naming can express assimilation and resistance without requiring lengthy political explanation. A few syllables can carry the whole conflict.

Toward a “rainbow onomastics”

7. I. M. Nick — Rainbow Onomastics: Literary Strategies for Naming Characters in Children’s Books for and About Gender Diversity

Editor I. M. Nick closes the volume by examining naming and gender diversity in children’s literature.

The publicly accessible material does not provide enough of the chapter itself to reconstruct its individual literary analyses responsibly, so some caution is necessary here. What can be established is revealing nonetheless. The book preview shows that the chapter includes a figure presenting registered US violent-crime rates between 2017 and 2021 according to gender identity and sexuality. In other words, Nick does not treat the naming of gender-diverse characters as a purely stylistic question; literary naming is placed against a broader social context in which identity labels and personal identities can have serious real-world consequences.

The chapter also follows logically from Nick’s previous work. In the 2024 volume Names, Naming, and the Law, Nick and Sharon N. Obasi co-authored a chapter on laws and policies regulating personal names and transgender and gender-diverse identities in the United States and Canada. That study examined the relationship between chosen names, gender identity and official documentation.

Rainbow Onomastics brings related questions into literature for younger audiences. How do authors create names for gender-diverse characters? How does renaming communicate identity? What happens when the name used by the self conflicts with the name used by others? And how can literature represent such choices without reducing a character to a category?

Those questions make the final chapter a logical endpoint for the collection: naming is presented not only as something society does to individuals, but something individuals can use to articulate who they are.

Seven chapters, but one larger argument

Seen together, the chapters create a striking progression.

Michael Adams begins with the invented names of imaginary cultures. Sharon Obasi moves into the instability of immigrant names. Jung Kim and Sohyun An ask whether Asian American names in children’s literature foster cultural pride or assimilation. Susan Behrens examines naming as a resource for young people facing powerlessness. Sally Brown and Nahiris Lugo Munoz bring the discussion into multicultural picturebooks and early education. Cintrón-Gonzalez and De Persia Colón show pronunciation itself becoming a negotiation of Latinx identity. Finally, I. M. Nick examines names used to represent gender-diverse childhoods and identities. The complete seven-chapter structure is confirmed by Bloomsbury’s table of contents.

What holds these apparently different topics together is a shift in the basic question of literary onomastics.

Instead of asking only:

Why did the author choose this name?

the volume repeatedly encourages us to ask:

Who has the right to name? Who has the right to change a name? Who must learn whose pronunciation? What social information does a name make visible? What disappears when it is altered? And what new identity becomes possible when someone names themselves?

That is perhaps the book’s strongest contribution.

A timely expansion of literary onomastics

Literary onomastics has traditionally been particularly strong at uncovering etymology, symbolism, sound associations, intertextual references and authorial wordplay. Names, Naming, Diversity, and Identity in Youth Literature does not abandon any of those concerns. Instead, it adds a strongly socio-onomastic dimension.

Names move between texts and society.

Tolkien’s multiple names encode encounters between invented cultures. An immigrant child’s name carries a language across a border. An Asian American protagonist’s name can expose assumptions about assimilation. A teenager can discard a damaging label. A teacher can either learn a child’s name or continually distort it. Iveliz can refuse to become Ivy-Liz. A gender-diverse character can claim a name that expresses an identity more accurately than the one assigned by others.

Bloomsbury’s endorsements accordingly emphasize the collection’s treatment of belonging, resistance and empowerment, as well as the unusually broad movement from fantasy and picturebooks to novels and verse.

There is one limitation worth noting even in an introductory presentation. Despite the broad title, the publisher describes the volume itself as primarily Anglo-American in geographical focus. That leaves considerable room for future comparative work: naming and youth literature in Africa, Asia, continental Europe, the Middle East, Latin America beyond US Latinx writing, and Indigenous literary traditions could eventually expand this conversation considerably.

But as a starting point, this compact seven-chapter collection demonstrates convincingly just how much can happen in the space occupied by a personal name.

Why this book matters to onomasticians

Perhaps the most important achievement of Names, Naming, Diversity, and Identity in Youth Literature is that it takes young readers seriously.

Children encounter onomastic diversity long before they know the word onomastics. They notice that some classmates’ names are repeatedly mispronounced. They learn that grandparents use one form of a name and teachers another. They discover nicknames, pseudonyms, translated names and chosen names. Through fantasy they learn that another people may possess a completely different naming system. Through migration stories they encounter names that cross languages and borders.

Youth literature is therefore one of the earliest places in which people learn what names can mean socially.

And that makes the study of names in such literature anything but marginal.

A child reading about Iveliz insisting on Iveliz, a migrant protagonist retaining a heritage name, or Aragorn being known differently across several cultures is also learning something about the relationship between language, identity and other people.

That is where this new volume is particularly successful conceptually. It demonstrates that names in youth literature can operate simultaneously as linguistic forms, literary devices, cultural inheritances, social classifications and acts of self-definition.

In other words, the question is no longer merely What is in a name?

For young readers, the more interesting question may be:

What can a name do?


Bibliographical information

Nick, I. M. (ed.). 2026. Names, Naming, Diversity, and Identity in Youth Literature. Names and Naming in the Social Sciences and Humanities. Bloomsbury Academic. 168 pp. ISBN 978-1-6669-7586-4. The Canadian hardback edition is dated 25 June 2026.

Book information and ordering at Bloomsbury

Announcement on LINGUIST List

Susan J. Behrens, “Naming to Survive in the Face of Powerlessness” in NAMES