Editing Onomastics

{{Short description|Study of proper names}}
'''Onomastics''' (or '''onomatology''' in older texts) is the study of [[proper name]]s, including their [[etymology]], history, and use.

An ''alethonym'' ('true name') or an ''orthonym'' ('real name') is the proper name of the object in question, the object of onomastic study. Scholars studying onomastics are called ''onomasticians''.

Onomastics has applications in [[data mining]], with applications such as [[named-entity recognition]], or recognition of the origin of names.<ref>{{cite arXiv|eprint=1310.6311|class=cs.CY|first1=Elian|last1=Carsenat|title=Onomastics and Big Data Mining|year=2013}}</ref><ref>{{cite arXiv|eprint=1303.0484|class=cs.IR|first1=Folke|last1=Mitzlaff|first2=Gerd|last2=Stumme|title=Onomastics 2.0 - The Power of Social Co-Occurrences|year=2013}}</ref> It is a popular approach in historical research, where it can be used to identify [[ethnic minorities]] within populations<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Crymble|first=Adam|date=2017-02-09|title=How Criminal were the Irish? Bias in the Detection of London Currency Crime, 1797-1821|journal=The London Journal|volume=43|pages=36–52|doi=10.1080/03058034.2016.1270876|doi-access=free|hdl=2299/19710|hdl-access=free}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal|last=Crymble|first=Adam|date=2015-07-26|title=A Comparative Approach to Identifying the Irish in Long Eighteenth-Century London|url=http://researchprofiles.herts.ac.uk/portal/services/downloadRegister/8738332/Irish_Surnames_in_London_2014_repositoryVersion.pdf|journal=Historical Methods|volume=48|issue=3|pages=141–152|doi=10.1080/01615440.2015.1007194|hdl=2299/16184|s2cid=161595975|hdl-access=free|access-date=2017-08-27|archive-date=2020-03-14|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200314192933/https://uhra.herts.ac.uk/bitstream/handle/2299/16184/Irish_Surnames_in_London_2014_repositoryVersion.pdf?sequence=3|url-status=live}}</ref> and for the purpose of [[prosopography]].

==Etymology==
''Onomastics'' originates from the [[Ancient Greek|Greek]] {{lang|grc|onomastikós}} ({{langx|grc|ὀνομαστικός||of or belonging to naming|label=none}}),<ref>[https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0057%3Aentry%3Do%29nomastiko%2Fs ὀνομαστικός] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200805201513/http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0057%3Aentry%3Do%29nomastiko%2Fs |date=2020-08-05 }}, Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, ''A Greek-English Lexicon'', on Perseus project</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=onomastics&searchmode=none|title=Online Etymology Dictionary|work=etymonline.com|access-date=26 July 2015|archive-date=27 August 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170827213051/http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=onomastics&searchmode=none|url-status=live}}</ref> itself derived from {{lang|grc|ónoma}} ({{langx|grc|ὄνομα||name|label=none}}).<ref>[https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0057%3Aentry%3Do%29%2Fnoma ὄνομα] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210225234245/http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0057%3Aentry%3Do%29%2Fnoma |date=2021-02-25 }}, Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, ''A Greek-English Lexicon'', on Perseus project</ref>

== Branches ==

* [[Toponymy#Toponomastics|Toponymy]] (or more precisely toponomastics), one of the principal branches of onomastics, is the study of place names.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Cacciafoco|first1=Francesco Perono|title=Place Names: Approaches and Perspectives in Toponymy and Toponomastics|last2=Cavallaro|first2=Francesco|year=2023}}</ref>
* [[Anthroponomastics]] is the study of personal names.<ref>{{cite book|last=Bruck|first=Gabriele|date=2009|title=The Anthropology of Names and Naming}}</ref>
* [[Literary onomastics]] is the branch that researches the names in works of literature and other fiction.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Alvarez-Altman|first1=Grace|title=Names in Literature: Essays from Literary Onomastics Studies|last2=Burelbach|first2=Frederick M.|year=1987}}</ref>
* [[Socio-onomastics]] or re-onomastics is the study of names within a society or culture.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Ainiala |first1=Terhi|title=Socio-onomastics:The pragmatics of names|last2=Östman|first2=Jan-Ola|year=2017}}</ref>

==See also==
* [[Ancient Greek personal names]]
* [[Extinction of surnames]]
* [[Hydronym]]
* [[Mononymous persons]]
* [[Naming convention]]
* [[-onym]], listing the technical kinds of names

; Organizations
* [[American Name Society]]
* [[English Place-Name Society]]
* [[Guild of One-Name Studies]]
* [[International Council of Onomastic Sciences]]
* [[Society for Name Studies in Britain and Ireland]]
* [[United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names]]

==References==
{{reflist}}

==External links==
{{wiktionary}}
* [http://www.lgpn.ox.ac.uk/ Lexicon of Greek Personal Names], a major research project of the British Academy, Oxford, containing over 35,000 published Greek names

{{Personal names}}
{{Authority control}}

[[Category:Onomastics| ]]
[[Category:Folklore]]
[[Category:Lexicography]]


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