Socio-onomastics is the study of names through a sociolinguistic lens, and is part of the broader topic of onomastics. Socio-onomastics 'examines the use and variety of names through methods that demonstrate the social, cultural, and situational conditions in name usage'.[1] As a discipline, it aims to explore 'the social origin and use of different variants of proper names within various situations and contexts', including both place names and personal names.[2]

The term stems from the German Sozioonomastik and, first emerging among German thinkers in the early 1970s, it is a much younger subdiscipline of onomastics than many others (e.g. toponymy).[3]

Research can be contemporary, with data collected through surveys and ethnographical inquiry of modern societies and communities, or historical, based on historical written sources. Methodologically speaking, socio-onomastics focuses on synchronic variation of names over time and space - why are some names given and others not, why are some so popular, why are some remembered by or applied to certain groups of people or places?[4]

Notable scholars

Socio-onomastic study of nicknames has proved particularly productive. James Skipper Jr., Professor of Sociology, focused on the study of nicknames within typically American cultural groups: baseball players and jazz musicians. Alongside Leslie, his Toward a Theory of Nicknames: A Case for Socio-Onomastics, published in the journal Names, established a number of crucial theoretical concerns.

Further reading

References

  1. ↑ "About socio-onomastics – New trends in Nordic Socio-onomastics". Nordic Socioonomastics. Retrieved 6 May 2022.
  2. ↑ Ainiala, Terhi; Östman, Jan-Ola (2017). "Introduction". In Ainiala, T.; Östman, J-O. (eds.). Socio-Onomastics: The Pragmatics of Names. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. p. 7. ISBN 9789027265692.
  3. ↑ Walther, H. (1971). Namenforschung heute. Ihre Ergebnisse und Aufgaben in der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik. Berlin.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  4. ↑ Ainiala, Terhi (2016). "Names in Society". In Hough, Carole (ed.). The Oxford Handbook of Names and Naming. Oxford. p. 372.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)


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