#onomastics

[nathanielthecurious]

okay so having numbers in your last name is cool when it’s matteo JWHJ0715, but not when it’s a hot girl with a new account on tumblr dot com 🙄 just say you hate women

#spam blogs #goncharov #the hall of fame #onomastics #(kind of? tag added in retrospect since this got big and i was noticing Themes in my blog)

[yeoldenews]

While we’re on the subject of names, is there an explanation for how traditional nicknames came about that are seemingly unrelated to, or have little in common with, the original name?

ie- John/Jack, Richard/Dick, Henry/Harry/Hank, Charles/Chuck, Margaret/Peggy/Daisy, Sarah/Sally, Mary/Molly, Anne/Nan, etc

I am actually over a week into researching a huge follow-up post (probably more than one if I’m being honest) about the history of nickname usage, so I will be going into this in much, much more detail at a hopefully not-so-later date - if I have not lost my mind. (Two days ago I spent three hours chasing down a source lead that turned out to be a typographical error from 1727 that was then quoted in source after source for the next 150 years.)

As a preview though, here’s some info about the names you mentioned:

The origins of a good portion of common English nicknames come down to the simple fact that people really, really like rhyming things. Will 🠞Bill, Rob🠞Bob, Rick🠞Dick, Meg🠞Peg.

It may seem like a weird reason, but how many of you have known an Anna/Hannah-Banana? I exclusively refer to my Mom’s cat as Toes even though her name is Moe (Moesie-Toesies 🠞 Toesies 🠞 Toes).

Jack likely evolved from the use of the Middle English diminutive suffix “-chen” - pronounced (and often spelled) “-kyn” or “kin”. The use of -chen as a diminutive suffix still endures in modern German - as in “liebchen” = sweetheart (lieb “love” + -chen).

John (Jan) 🠞 Jankin 🠞 Jackin 🠞 Jack.

Hank was also originally a nickname for John from the same source. I and J were not distinct letters in English until the 17th Century. “Iankin” would have been nearly indistinguishable in pronunciation from “Hankin” due to H-dropping. It’s believed to have switched over to being a nickname for Henry in early Colonial America due to the English being exposed to the Dutch nickname for Henrik - “Henk”.

Harry is thought to be a remnant of how Henry was pronounced up until the early modern era. The name was introduced to England during the Norman conquest as the French Henri (On-REE). The already muted nasal n was dropped in the English pronunciation. With a lack of standardized spelling, the two names were used interchangeably in records throughout the middle ages. So all the early English King Henrys would have written their name Henry and pronounced it Harry.

Sally and Molly likely developed simply because little kids can’t say R’s or L’s. Mary 🠞 Mawy 🠞 Molly. Sary 🠞 Sawy 🠞 Sally.

Daisy became a nickname for Margaret because in French garden daisies are called marguerites.

Nan for Anne is an example of a very cool linguistic process called rebracketing, where two words that are often said/written together transfer letters/morphemes over time. The English use of “an” instead of “a” before words beginning with vowels is a common cause of rebracketing. For example: the Middle English “an eute” became “a newt”, and “a napron” became “an apron”. In the case of nicknames the use of the archaic possessive “mine” is often the culprit. “Mine Anne” over time became “My Nan” as “mine” fell out of use. Ned and Nell have the same origin.

Oddly enough the word “nickname” is itself a result of rebracketing, from the Middle English “an eke (meaning additional) name”.

I realized earlier this week that my cat (Toe’s sister) also has a rebracketing nickname. Her name is Mina, but I call her Nom Nom - formed by me being very annoying and saying her name a bunch of time in a row - miNAMiNAMiNAM.

Chuck is a very modern (20th century) nickname which I’ll have to get back to you on as I started my research in the 16th century and am only up to the 1810s so far lol.

#names #nicknames #onomastics #history #asks #nicknames are really hard to research you guys #there is so much info out there and it's almost all nonsense #and I'm talking academic books with listed sources not buzzfeed listicles #some guy in the 18th century forgetting to mention Bill on a list of common nicknames does not mean it wasn't in use at the time ma dude #i've had to get very creative with sources #god bless word for word murder trial testimony

[gayestpiano]

hi i made an euler diagram of given names that are also english words

#if you're reading this check out my pinned post for an updated version #given names #names #linguistics #euler diagram #mine #this took me for fucking ever to put together and it still looks kinda shitty but i'm tired of working on it #venn diagram #words #english #onomastics

[tuulikki]

Anglophone toponyms be like

Sugarloaf Mountain

Bridal Veil Falls

Mill Creek

#hiking #geography #english #onomastics

[monstrousgourmandizingcats]

BoE name material

#the locked tomb #blood of eden #onomastics

[useless-catalanfacts]

I'm guessing now it's the same as Spanish because of imperialism, but did Catalan names originally follow the First name + Second name + Father's surname + Mother's surname naming system?

Yes, nowadays we use both surnames. We can't be sure of what would have happened, but the two surnames we have now were a Spanish imposition in most cases.

Before the 19th century, most Catalan men used only one surname. Only the upper classes had more surnames, since they often wanted to keep stacking titles (think of those really long names of nobles, if you marry into another powerful family and yours is powerful too you wouldn't want either of the lineages to get lost, the most titles you can "collect" the better!). Women could often use two surnames after getting married (their father's and their husband's).

In 1870, the Spanish law decided that civil register should have 2 surnames (first the father's and secondly the mother's) for each person to identify them better. That's how people started to have two surnames.

The most visible effect of this law, however, is the spelling. When Spanish-speaker state officers had to write down Catalan surnames, they would write them down according to Spanish spelling rules. That's why many Catalan surnames have a "Spanishified" spelling, like "Peña" instead of Penya, "Calzada" instead of Calçada, "Lladó" instead of Lledó, etc.

(As for first names, usually we only have 1 except you've been baptized, but that's not an official name and how much those 1 or 2 extra names are counted as part of your name depends on each person or family)

More information about the origin of Catalan surnames below the cut.

In the Middle Ages, Catalans had a name and a "nickname", often referred to a characteristic. Many of our surnames come from here. For example, physical attributes like Roig ("red", red-haired), Tort ("hooked"), Petit ("small"), Rossell ("blond"), Calvet ("balding"), etc; or jobs like Ferrer ("blacksmith"), Fuster ("carpenter"), Carnisser ("butcher"), Oller ("potter"), etc.

Among Catalan people, the use of surnames started being generalized in the 9th century.

In legal documents of the time, we see people are referred by who their father is. If the text was in Latin (even though people already spoke Catalan, Latin was still the most used language in writing), the first name would be in nominative case and the father's name in genitive case; if the text was in Catalan, it would be after the preposition "de", meaning "of" (same meaning as the cases in Latin). For example, Berenguer son of Ramon was Berengarius Raimundi in Latin and Berenguer de Ramon in Catalan.

Genitive case often ends in -is, that's why in Spanish and Aragonese you can find lots of surnames that come from a name+ez. For example: Sánchez would be the son of Sancho, Hernández of Hernán, López of Lope, González of Gonzalo, Rodríguez of Rodrigo, Martínez of Martín... Even nowadays, in Spain, 14 out of the 17 most common surnames are a name+ez! (Source)

This is not the case in Catalan. This Latin-derived surnames didn't become used. We only have 3 surnames with this origin (Peris, Sanxís, and Llopis) and they arrived to us from influence of Aragon, Castile and Navarre. Besides, neither of them is very common, unlike their Spanish equivalents. There was an exception in the Valencian Country, because some areas had a lot of Aragonese people as well as Catalan people or at least a strong Aragonese influence, so there existed more surnames related to the Aragonese ones.

From the 11th century on, the nobles started using the name of their lands as a surname, either after "de" (de Barcelona, d'Empúries...) or in adjective form (Barceló, Tarragó, Giró, Tàrrec). This started in the nobility to know who inherited what territories, but it was soon followed by the lower classes as well.

Lower class people often didn't have a territory to refer to and so they would use a name that made reference to their farmhouse, where they live, or other geographical terms. From here we get many of the most common Catalan surnames such as Riera ("stream"), Torrent ("watercourse"), Puig ("hill"), Pujol ("hill"), Vall ("valley") or Valls ("valleys"), Coma ("mountain pass"), Pomar ("apple orchard"), Vinyes ("vineyards"), Rovira ("oak tree forest"), Ribes ("shores") or simply the names of towns or areas like Solsona, Bages, Segarra, Agramunt, Vila, Canet, Cardona, Cabrera, Güell, Barberà, Cerdà...

All of this applies to men, but it worked differently for women because they weren't considered carriers of lineage in the same right as men, and were seen as under the property of a man (father or husband). In the Middle Ages, Catalan women usually had a feminine version of the father's surname (for example, if the father is Ferrer, she would be Ferrera). After getting married, women sometimes had both the father's and husband's surnames or only the husband's.

Source: Janer Torrens, Antoni (2014), "L'origen dels noms i cognoms catalans. Les arrels antroponímiques que marquen una identitat", II Congrés de la Societat d'Onomàstica i la XXVII Jornada d'Antroponímia i Toponímia de la UB. PDF.

#ask #anonymous #història #llengua catalana #onomastics #name #names #surnames #history #languages #langblr #cultures #catalan #etymology #coses de la terra #anthroponymy #anthroponymics #anthroponomastics #onomatology

[thedearidiot]

 and I, farthest away, choose a new name my grandmother cannot pray for. I have stolen language. nana cannot pronounce Charlie​​ when she prays in Spanish. I love her and cannot decide not to, even when she prays wrong. transition and translation or transnational trauma hold hands. I know the power of naming things. I often wish I didn’t.

- Charlie Blodnieks, Ars poetica for the end of the world.

#charlie blodnieks #poetry #language is incomplete #inspiration #onomastics

[wronghands1]

#lunch #lunchtine #lords #history #royalty #nobility #eponyms #onomastics #titles #etymology #wrong hands #john atkinson #webcomic #humor #funny

[scary-flag]

Could Izzy be Jewish? Some meta about the name Israel in the context of 17th/18th century English customs.

While I am perfectly fine with all kinds of headcanons behind Izzy's name, as an onomastics (the linguistic study of names) enthusiast and a philologist, I have to throw my hat into the ring. Let me tell you a bit more about the name in the context of English language itself. The canon does not tell us anything about Izzy's religious background, so I thought I'd spam you with some linguistic and historical knowledge lol.

Most people automatically connect the name Israel with the state of Israel, and it is, of course, a correct connection, as the name is the same in terms of etymology. The name is Hebrew and comes from the Book of Genesis. As a first name, it is ancient, as it was proven to have appeared on Eblaite language cuneiform tablets (on the lands of modern-day Syria).

However, we need to take into account that Israel Hands was born in the 18th century, when the naming customs were different from the BCE ones.

The most common naming custom in 18th century England was naming children after other family members - often the first son was named after the father's father, and the second son after the mother's father. The third son was named after the father himself. Of course, not every family followed that tradition, and sometimes (as it was a case with Stede) parents chose more unusual names.

Ever since the 10th century the Old Testament Hebrew names were popular in the Celtic areas of the world, with historical figures such as Israel the Grammarian bearing the name whilst having strong ties to the Latin Church.

In the late 1600s and 1700s England was predominantly Protestant, with the Church of England being the "default" church of the English people. However, the Anglicans of that era tended to identify their practices and traditions with Jewish ones over Catholic ones, as the Anglicans considered themselves to be one of the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel. Puritans and many other non-conformist dissenters (Protestants not agreeing with the CoE) especially liked to give their children names from the Old Testament and often chose the Hebrew spelling. Puritans also adapted some of their religious customs from Jews.

Jews began to resettle in England in the 1650s (after being expelled and banned by king Edward I in 1290 with the rise of antisemitism in the kingdom) but by the 1700s their numbers were still very low in comparison with Protestants. In 1690 their number was reported as barely 400.

However, there are historical reports of larger numbers of Jews (many Dutch of Portuguese Sephardic Jewish origin like Moses Cohen Henriques) in Jamaica in that time, especially in Kingston.

Biblical names were usually given by religious families - among the most popular were Benjamin, Isaac and Abraham. Less religious people and royalists often chose names connected to the historical English royals (like William, Edward, or Henry).

It is also worth noting that Israel might have not been the real name of the historical pirate - in 1719 he is referred to as Hesikia (Hezekiah) Hands.

So, to sum up: From a linguistic point of view, having the name Israel does not simply imply that its bearer comes from a Jewish family or is Jewish themself. As the Hebrew names were extremely popular amongst the dissidents that fled England to avoid religious persecution and ended up in America, it is very likely that the historical Israel Hands came from such a family. There is no historical information about his place of birth, though, so he might have been born in Jamaica.

As for the OFMD's Izzy Hands? We have absolutely no idea - his austerity and stark personality, as well as the tendency to dress all in black, might suggest Puritan upbringing, but since we were not told anything explicitly, you can all safely create your own headcanons without offending anyone, I believe. While the historical pirate likely wasn't Jewish, OFMD mostly avoids the topic of religion altogether (except for Jim's case), so the fans are free to interpret the characters in a way they enjoy.

This post was meant to be a "fun fact" type of a post, giving some background to the name itself in the context of English language and culture. I am neither Jewish nor Anglican, but I am an academically educated philologist obsessed with the etymology and names.

I might write the next post about the name Stede, as it is quite a curious case.

#i just like names okay #izzy hands #israel hands #our flag means death #ofmd #ofmd meta #ofmd meta post #ofmd headcanon #you cant stop a philologist from overanalyzing language stuff #etymology #onomastics #english philology freaks and all

[thecrazyworldbuilder]

Some naming conventions I got.

Angels of Ael get their names by simply having any array of alphabetic symbols put between the prefix A- and the suffix -el. If the array begins with A, then the prefix gains an umlaut; If the array ends with E, the suffix gains an umlaut. Thus Asoupel, Aexampleël, Äabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzel, Astrange-nameël, Aisn'tel are valid names for them.

The royal bloodline of Xerii get their names by putting the clusters/hiatuses inside a word in reverse order, and: If there's an initial cluster -> Add "a-" Male firstborn -> Suffix "-ius" Female firstborn -> Suffix "-iel" Male nextborn -> Suffix "-is" Female nextborn -> Suffix "-ia". Names like Arkadia, Noicius, Erociel, Koais are valid names.

There's a way of naming I could use that I haven't labeled yet. Take a four or less letter word with a consonant cluster in it and break said cluster with "i", then add: Masculine suffix: -or, -an Feminine suffix: -ia, -elle, -anna Family name suffix: -is, -us, -as, -es, -os, (toponymics like "shire", "hill"), -ax.

Another uses a cryptolang called "Duenagáir". -> Replace A with Ue, E with Αi, I with Eo, O with Io and U with Oa. -> Break consonant clusters with "a". -> Add an acute accent to the penultimate vowel. Thus names like Duérak, Seonagáir, Giurái and the like are born. Or, an alternative last step could be to add an apostrophe before the last vowel, creating names like Teogara'iss, Meosata'ir, Sawiur'ad, Soagu'er, Meon'at...

#worldbuilding #names #cryptolangs #cryptolang #onomastics

[magicalgirllover7]

Ok so in bugbo onomastics bugs with human eyes have “bo” at the end of their names and bugs with bead eyes have “po” at the end of their names

#bugbo #bugbo series #onomastics #Mr Bensilly if you could confirm this that would be excellent

[leseigneurdufeu]

"Everyone in my family has Marie as a middle name including boys"

Unhinged French moment

I mean it's because it's a family tradition to have everyone even the boys devoted to the Virgin Mary. We don't have only two names though we have up to five first names each (i have four).

#onomastics

[yeoldenews]

The craziest nickname i know of even more of of leftfield than Peg for Margaret, is Tuck for William. Can you explain where that one came from?

While I've seen a few scattered Williams who go by Tuck, I've never seen any formal association with the name William.

I feel like English has too many terms for nicknames (diminutive, hypocorism, sobriquet, pet name, etc.) which either have no firm definitions, or they have definitions that largely overlap - which leads to a lot of confusion as to exactly what type of nickname you're talking about.

For example: my given name is Samantha, but my family calls me Sissy. Sissy is my (a person named Samantha's) nickname, but that doesn't mean Sissy is a nickname for Samantha.

So while Tuck may be a person named William's nickname, it isn't a nickname for William (at least not that I've ever come across).

And Peg may seem odd, but it's actually pretty straight-forward linguistically:

Margaret was shortened Marg, Marg became Mag due to many British dialects lacking rhoticity, Mag became Meg as a result of the Great Vowel Shift, and Meg rhymes with Peg and people really, really like rhyming stuff.

#names #history #asks #nicknames #linguistics #onomastics #language

[gayestpiano]

okay this is version 3 of my given names that are also words euler diagram

#NOT doing another one #probably #names #linguistics #euler diagram #diagram #charts #mine #venn diagram #given names #onomastics #the first version keeps getting notes and nobody's seeing the updated versions :( #oh well say lavee and whatnot #just two little updates this time #first one to find them gets 50 points! #i didn't include months because they are proper nouns

[tuulikki]

Germanic Names

No reason. I just like names.

Alard (m) Related to "Adalhard": adal ("noble"), hart ("brave, hardy")

Aldwin (m) Literally "old friend", which is a great way to ensure the named person will have a long-term homoerotic relationship with someone who may also become a sexy nemesis

Alfric (m) ELF KING

Anzo (m) From a Germanic root meaning "giant." Giant what? 👀

Ascelin (m) From a diminutive nickname that means "ash tree"

Aveza (f) Germanic version of avis, "bird"

Badulf (m) BATTLE WOLF, thank you Germanic names

Bernard (m) BEAR + HARD (as in "hardy", so "tough bear")

Bertram (m) Bright raven

Elfreda, Elfreida (f) Elf strength 💪💪💪

Frida (f) Peace

Godfrey (m) Peace of god

Isa (f) Ice

Leofflæd (f) Beloved beauty

Rainard (m) ~"Bravely advised" (but also Reynard the Fox, obvs)

Rudolf, Rolf, Hrolf, Rudy (m) Famous wolf

Sæwine (m) Sea friend

Saxa (f) Knife, by way of "Saxon" = saxe

Shirley (f) Bright clearing in the woodlands

Solja (f) Buttercup (pronounced sol-ya)

Sunniva (f) Sun's gift

Valdis (f) Goddess of the slain

Vigdis (f) War goddess

#names #name suggestions #onomastics #etymology #personal shit ahoy

[monstrousgourmandizingcats]

Shauna as feminine form of Shaun/Séan, Jackie of Jack, Séan and Jack both branches of the Yôḥānān-Ἰωάννης-Iohannes-Jehan-John tree, Jackie also nickname for Jacqueline, feminine form of Jacques, Jacques the name Shauna gives Dead Cabin Guy for the seance, Lottie singing "Frère Jacques" in Shauna's death-dream, James and John famously brothers in the Gospels, James cognate of Jacob (Yaʿaqōḇ has a staggering variety of onomastic progeny), Jacob on Genesis famously antagonistic with his brother. Shauna and Jackie in love and in hate, Wilderness Baby a linchpin for things that could have been salvaged, Lottie and Dead Cabin Guy channels for how and why it all falls apart. Yellowjackets is a show about spirals, closed circles, repetition, and stuckness, right down to the characters' names.

#yellowjackets #onomastics #etymology #shauna shipman #jackie taylor #shaunajackie #jackieshauna #like shipping necrosis with a wound #meta