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| AI-generated poster / non official |
The planned volume will appear in Bloomsbury’s book series Names and Naming in the Social Sciences and Humanities and will focus on what may broadly be described as forensic onomastics: the study of names and naming practices in criminal, legal, investigative, and forensic contexts.
Contributions may examine any type of name and may address a wide range of topics, including the names of crimes, criminals, victims, law-enforcement agencies, laws, and policies. Other possible areas include identity theft and other illegal uses of names; legal regulations governing personal or commercial names; translation and transliteration of names in forensic contexts; aliases and clandestine naming practices among criminals; media naming practices in crime reporting; law-enforcement procedures for processing onomastic data; and legal disputes involving names.
The editors also welcome research on the use of names in threats, defamation, harassment, or other criminal acts, as well as studies of naming in true-crime and crime fiction.
Proposals may investigate any language or languages, whether spoken, written, or signed. Both diachronic and synchronic approaches are welcome, and researchers may employ qualitative, quantitative, or mixed methods. The central requirement is that the proposed analysis must remain clearly focused on onomastic data and demonstrate a meaningful contribution to both forensic linguistics and onomastics.
Submission details
Abstract proposals should be no longer than 500 words, excluding the title and references, and must be submitted as a Word document attachment to Professor I. M. Nick, Editor-in-Chief of NAMES: A Journal of Onomastics, at nameseditor@gmail.com.
The email subject line must include the word “FORENSICS.”
Each proposal must contain a title, abstract, and preliminary bibliography. The author’s name and institutional affiliation should appear in the body of the email, not in the attached proposal, in order to facilitate double-blind review. For co-authored submissions, one author should be designated as the primary contact.
Proposal deadline: 15 October 2026
Notification of acceptance: by 15 November 2026
Final chapter deadline: 15 March 2027
Maximum chapter length: 7,000 words, excluding abstracts, graphics, and references
All proposals will undergo double-blind review.
This call offers an excellent opportunity for scholars working at the borders of naming studies, forensic linguistics, legal studies, media studies, criminology, and sociolinguistics to contribute to a developing area of interdisciplinary research.
For further information, prospective contributors may contact Professor I. M. Nick at nameseditor@gmail.com.
