Onomastics

Template:Short description Onomastics (or onomatology in older texts) is the study of proper names, 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>Template:Cite arXiv</ref><ref>Template:Cite arXiv</ref> It is a popular approach in historical research, where it can be used to identify ethnic minorities within populations<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> and for the purpose of prosopography.

Etymology

Onomastics originates from the Greek Template:Lang (Template:Langx),<ref>ὀνομαστικός Template:Webarchive, Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, on Perseus project</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> itself derived from Template:Lang (Template:Langx).<ref>ὄνομα Template:Webarchive, Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, on Perseus project</ref>

Branches

Toponymy (or more precisely toponomastics), one of the principal branches of onomastics, is the study of place names.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
Anthroponomastics is the study of personal names.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
Literary onomastics is the branch that researches the names in works of literature and other fiction.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
Socio-onomastics or re-onomastics is the study of names within a society or culture.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>