Questions tagged [names]
a word or set of words by which a person, language or thing is known, addressed, or referred to.
78 questions
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How common is it for languages with declension to decline names like nouns?
This question pertains specifically to languages that both have case-marking on nouns and do that case-marking through declension rather than solely things like adpositions.
Some Indo-European ...
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How might "Grante" > "Cante" > "Cam" have happened in the name "Cambridge"?
Etymonline says only that these changes were "due to Norman influence"
I've never heard of any change similar to gra > ca before, nor anteb > amb. I think for the latter I could ...
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How do Indo-European languages deal with the grammatical gender of personal names?
How do Indo-European languages deal with the grammatical gender of personal names?
The reason I'm asking this question is because there's a female character named Rio Morales from the Spider-Verse ...
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Is there any premise for Compounding Words in Spanish place names?
I'm trying to make a Fakemon (fanmade Pokemon) region based on Mexico, and I want to name a number of the cities with Spanish-sounding names. I admit that I'm terrible at making names, so I use this ...
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How and when was the name of Somalia written with س in Iran?
In Arab world Somalia is written with ص. They call it صومال.
But in Iran where people use so many Arabic words in a daily basis without misspelling them, write Somalia with س. They write it سومالی.
...
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Is there a rule when the use of the definite article on proper nouns is appropriate in Semitic languages?
As far as I understand, according to the conventional grammar of Hebrew (and likely other Semitic languages), the definite article is typically only be attached to common nouns, but not to proper ...
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Why in the world are French "Paul" and "Paule" distinguished by vowel openness?
Wikipedia lists
Paul [pɔl] ('Paul', masculine), vs. Paule [pol] ('Paule', feminine),
as a minimal pair of the two mid rounded back vowels of French.
What I wonder is, how did it happen that the two ...
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Is the name "Melisande" related to the Latin for "honey", "Mel"?
Some people say "Melisande" is just French Melissa, which ''is'' clearly derived from "mel", but Wikipedia doesn't mention any such thing for Melisande, instead saying that the ...
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Why do some theophoric names put the verb first?
Across several Afro-Asiatic languages, it used to be common to use entire sentences as personal names, usually with a deity involved. For example, the emperor Nebuchadnezzar's name in Akkadian was ...
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How to deal with modern Indian people's first names and surnames when declining in Sanskrit?
I have a question about how to deal with people's names when using Sanskrit in a modern context.
Let's say I want to say "Ãnanda is in the forest", I can say वन आनन्दः. Ignoring any possible ...
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How do you form demonyms in Sumerian as well as Akkadian?
If I'm not mistaken, the Sumerians called themselves as 𒊕𒈪𒂵 (saĝ-gíg-ga) and their country as 𒆠𒂗𒄀 (k-en-gi(-r), how would you turn that into an adjectival form or demonym like how -n is added to ...
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Why do some languages lack family name markers?
This is an extension of the questions that I have asked in the German and French communities: some languages have a subset of family names that are indistinguishable from given names, occasionally ...
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Origin of the family name affix "tom"
During my mathematics research, I've come across the mathematician Tammo tom Dieck. I have never come across the family name affix "tom", neither Wiktionary nor light googling give me ...
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Is there a term to describe female names derived from a male name?
As an example there is the name Alexandra, a female name derived from the Greek male name Alexandros.
Is there a term used to describe this process? As there are terms to describe to process of ...
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How did Shiloah (שילוח) become Siloam and Silwan?
What sorts of changes led the Biblical Hebrew name Shiloah (שילוח) to become Siloam (in Greek) and Silwan (in Arabic)? Has this been discussed anywhere?
EDITED I removed the word morphological from my ...
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Hawai'ian Surname Inheritance During Act To Regulate Names?
So, I was wondering how family names were inherited during the Act to Regulate Names in Hawai'i. There's some conflicting info: some sources seem to say that the given name of the father of the person ...
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Frequency of non-legal name preference
I've been looking for research on the percentage of people who have a preferred name which differs from their legal name. I've found a few papers which are overly specific but none which give a broad ...
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meaning & origin of "wardul" [closed]
What is the origin of the surname "Wardul" used in some Asian countries (Pakistan, India...)? Does the word "wardul" mean something in any language? (ex.Hindi, Sanskrit etc etc)
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How and when did the modern western convention of not translating personal names arise?
In many languages it is a convention to translate or at least adapt foreign personal names to the language when discussing foreign people, especially notable and often mentioned people such as foreign ...
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Addressing others using names/titles vs pronouns
In some languages like Japanese, personal pronouns tend to carry strong connotations and are often avoided in favor of names and titles, in both formal and informal contexts.
In others like Finnish, ...
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What is the etymology of Wanona (said to be the name of Kullervo's sister meaning "weeping")?
Tolkien coined the name Wanōna (also Welinōre, Wanōra, Oanōra) in his Story of Kullervo. It's totally possible they belong to Tolkien's constructed languages. But I think the etymology is still ...
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Does anyone know what the name Peter translates to in Egyptian? [closed]
Peter
I need to find out what the name Peter translates to in Egyptian.
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What is the etymology of the Western Georgian family name Ashkinadze (borne by both Christians and Jews)? [closed]
The Western Georgian family name Ashkinadze consists of at least two morphemes, the last of which (-ძე = -dze in romanization) is the Georgian for ‘son’.
A Georgian trained in linguistics told me in ...
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Do Native Americans' names mean the same to Native Americans as to English (or other languages) speakers?
I was researching on the topic of representation of ethnic minorities in the dominant ethnic group's media, when this question came up. What I'm trying know more is whether and to what extent ...
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Given that so many Indo-European peoples called themselves "Veneti" or the like, can we conclude that it was the endonym of PIE people as well?
For instance:
Veneti (Gaul) - Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veneti_(Gaul))
Vistula Veneti - Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vistula_Veneti)
Adriatic Veneti - Wikipedia (https://...
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Are the Paris's names "City of Light" and "Lutetia" connected?
Paris is called City of Light. I wonder whether this name could come from ancient name of the city Λευκοτεκία (Ptolemy).
Λευκος in Greek means light or white. And τεκ- root means "stone" (cognates ...
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Is Latin Proto-Romance?
Proto languages are usually unwritten but can be reconstructed to a certain point based on what they left behind in “daughter languages”. But, I feel that Latin (classical and vulgar) are part of one ...
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Excepting Romanian, is "Wales" ever translated/transliterated in modern languages with the same term as that meaning "Gaul" or "Gauls"?
I have noticed that in Romanian the name of Wales is Ţara Galilor, which literally means Country of the Gauls or "Gauls-land". I consider this not just unusual, something that is not present ...
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Does the southern pronunciation of Jenny have a triphthong in it?
You know when Forrest Gump yells Jenny's name and it sounds like "Jenneay". I'm wondering if there actually is a triphthong at the end there, or of it is a figment of my imagination. I ...
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Why are the phonemes of Tutankhamun's throne name transliterated out of order?
Tutankhamun's throne name in the sacred writing is as follows:
Which, from the bottom, represent ideograms conventionally pronounced as Neb-U-Kheper-Ra.
However, when the name is transliterated (for ...
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Correlation between pronunciation of given names and gender
In a number of major Western European languages, there are some fairly straighforward correlations between the pronunciation of given names and the biological gender these names are assigned to. E.g. ...
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Nicknames in Various Historical Cultures
There are a variety of ways to form casual address terms.
Using family terms is common ('brother'), shortening/modifying a given name ('Teddy' from Theodore), or something based on the person's ...
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In romance languages, are there examples of male names that derive from female names?
In french, there are many female given names that are derived from male given names. Those names are often obtained by adding "ine", "ette", "e" or "a" at the end of the male name. Examples include
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Are names of dishes more prone to name change due to power / language shift?
I am wondering whether names of dishes are generally more prone to change when a power or language shift occurs in a society?
Particularly, I am thinking of the Egyptian cuisine and the current ...
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Why is it that Babylonian king names do not match their Akkadian equivalent?
I am trying to figure out why it is that Babylonian (and Assyrian) king names do not match their Akkadian transcription.
For example, in the one known inscription for Nabonassar, which is written in ...
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Julius Caesar original name spelling?
Was Julius Caesar originally spelled with and I before "J" was invented? Or was it spelled some other way? If so, how?
I'm curious.
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Is Musa a Montenegrin Muslim female name?
I was checking family records and found out that a great grandfather married a Musa. I know that Musa is a male name but the records are kept in Turkish although the great grandparents were of Bosniak ...
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Similar diminutive name construction in Turkish and Armenian
In Armenian diminutive for personal names are formed by adding 'o' for some short part of the name (I'm intentionally not calling this short form "root" cause it's not necessarily a root), so some ...
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Where might the given name Xelefon originate?
I was recently reading some historical records wherein a lady was mentioned, Olga Malar (née Cuch), born in "Napodiwka," Poland, in 1922. She was said to be the daughter of Xelefon Cuch and Jewdokia ...
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Why do some languages have many names?
I understand that each language has one name in each language and that they are not necessarily the same. For example, German is Deutsch in German and Allemand in French.
But I've just seen Sranan ...
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What is the hypernym of names, unique titles, and definite descriptions?
The name Elizabeth Alexandra Mary, the unique title The Queen of England, and the definite description the elder daughter of Cecilia Bowes Lyon all refer to the same unique entity. We might think of ...
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Use of "Ibn" in Arabic names [closed]
I've been given a script where the Persian scholar Ibn Rustah is referred to as "Ibn". As I understand it, "Ibn" is part of the patronymic nasab and shouldn't be used as if it were a first name.
Am I ...
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Is the study of proper names really a branch of linguistics?
Is the fact proper names are somewhat fixed in language (often not translated and also do not tend to change even in light of a change in attributes from which it gained its name), mean that it is no ...
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Is the Indian female name "Sati" the same as the self-immolating Hindu goddess? [closed]
I heard about an Indian woman (possibly Hindu) with a given name of Sati the other day. Checking the internet, this site confirmed that Sati is an Indian female name.
Is the name "Sati" related to ...
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Does this name's pronunciation match the spelling? [closed]
I want to use a unique name as my personal, yet it's spelling is very unclear to me. The pronunciation is "E m ai l" As in- E-end, M-me, AI-lie, L-live. Emphasized as word "agile". Is it correct to ...
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Open corpora of personal names
The only open corpus of personal names of which I am aware is the Names Corpus by Mark Kantrowitz and Bill Ross (which can also be found in the Python Natural Language Toolkit (NLTK)).
It is much ...
user11091
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Kai as a Frisian diminutive of Gerhard, Nicolaas, Cornelius, or Gaius
On this website, it is mentioned that Kai might be considered as a Frisian diminutive of Gerhard, Nicolaas (Nicholas), Cornelius, or Gaius.
I can see the relationship between Kai and Gaius (Caius, ...
user10740
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Do Azeri people actually use Ə instead of A in names?
I have two spellings of an Azeri name: Alakbar and Ələkbər.
In official contexts (ID or passport), do both forms of the name appear or just the latter?
Why do Azeris still transcribe their names if ...
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Why are most given names so common?
Is there a reason why it's so common for different people to share the same given name?
This seems to be a normal pattern in most languages. Names like Anna, Mohammed, Wei along with their ...
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Meaning of "Elin"
Elin is supposed to mean "Woman of Intelligence" in Sanskrit see http://www.thinkbabynames.com/meaning/0/Elin. However, I was not able to verify this independently in Sanskrit dictionaries on the web ...
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