In the Arabian Peninsula, lexically diminutive personal names, family names and place names are ubiquitous. In a dataset of 9,060 Arabian names, 1,717 (19 per cent) are diminutive. This article finds that the diminutive pattern CiCēC (cf. Classical CuCayC) has meanings and functions in Arabic names that are distinct from its meanings and functions in common nouns. In addition to expected meanings related to size, the diminutive carries partitive and attributive meanings. It may simply mark a name (as an onymic) or derive a name (as a transonymic). The diminutive may disambiguate two similar names found in close proximity (e.g. Diba ≠ Dubai). The form and function of the diminutive differ categorically according to what kind of name is diminutivized, supporting the semantic-pragmatic theory of names. A quantitative analysis of toponyms indicates that diminutive names are associated with Bedouin dialects and practices, as suggested by previous research.

This article provides an overview of the Russian origin of Karelian cow names. It explores what the Russian-origin names mean, what the most common principles of naming are, and whether Russian names have Karelian equivalents. Attention is also paid to the spatial and temporal variation of the names. The data were collected in the 2010s by means of interviews. The data are compared with the name data recorded in the Dictionary of Karelian (KKS). The KKS data reveal extensive adaptation to the Karelian language, whereas in the interview data there is less adaptation to Karelian and the names are often thoroughly Russian. In the KKS data the most common principle of naming is the time of birth, and names based on colouration are also common. According to both data sets, the principles of naming have remained relatively consistent, and the data reveal no great spatial differences in the occurrence of names.

Onomastic congruence (a feature defined in this article) is characteristic of historiographic biographies from the Early Empire. The Synoptic Gospels display onomastic congruence, as well as conservatism in their treatment of names. The preservation of names, especially those centred around key roles and events, suggests that some names may have been preserved in the oral archives of early Christian communities to footnote living eyewitness sources, paralleling historiographical situations.

This article highlights, through a poetic approach, the onomastics of the character in a genre called tullist in the Amazigh language. The article works through the first ten collections of texts designated by the terms Tullizt / Tullist that mark the beginnings of this genre (1998–2008). An in-depth analysis then reveals the different naming processes that Kabyle writers use in assigning names to their characters. The article concludes by offering a brief sociological discussion on the semantics of the assigned names.

Parents often weigh social, familial and cultural considerations when choosing their baby's name, but the name they choose could potentially be influenced by their physical or biotic environments. Here we examine whether the popularity of month and season names of girls covary geographically with environmental variables. In the continental USA, April, May and June (Autumn, Summer) are the most common month (season) names: April predominates in southern states (early springs), whereas June predominates in northern states (later springs). Whether April's popularity has increased with recent climate warming is ambiguous. Autumn is most popular in northern states, where autumn foliage is notably colourful, and in eastern states having high coverage of deciduous foliage. On a continental scale, Autumn was most popular in English-speaking countries with intense colouration of autumn foliage. These analyses are descriptive but indicate that climate and vegetation sometimes influence parental choice of their baby's name.

Lurking in the Historia Augusta's life of the short-lived Emperor Carus is what appears to be a reference to the genuine contemporary poet Nemesianus and an extant work by him, the Cynegetica. Given the HA's predilection for ‘bogus authors’, this is rather surprising, but because some of what the HA says about Nemesianus is true, the otherwise unique details of his life and works that it provides have been generally accepted. We show first that the reference to the Cynegetica is an incorporated gloss in the text of the HA, one that reveals that the text was being read and studied in northern Francia. We then demonstrate that the name ‘Olympius’, which the HA gives to Nemesianus, is not authentic, offering an analysis of the text's onomastic habits more generally. We show that ‘Olympius Nemesianus’ is one of several invented authors in the HA, lent a superficial plausibility by borrowing the name of a real ancient writer. Finally, we reflect on the way that these conclusions might undermine two developing tendencies in the study of the Historia Augusta.

The purpose of this paper is to present several avenues of reflection linked first to the onomastics of the African episcopate of the Byzantine period, then to its development. A quick overview of the most typical characteristics of onomastics of this period will be presented, followed by a description of the remarkable development of this African episcopate between the sixth and the beginning of the eighth century. It will conclude with observations on the African onomastic repertoire of the Protobyzantine era, which reflects the evolution of mentalities within the very interior of the African Christian people and the different circles within it.

Studies on the correlations between spatial distribution of linguistic varieties and genetic structure of populations began by dealing with geographic spaces and extensive linguistic families. In the last two decades, researchers with this type of interdisciplinary approach have also begun to study more reduced linguistic and population domains. This paper examines geolinguistic and onomastic information in a linguistic and administrative space of a limited extension of the Principality of Asturias. The information on the surnames of this region, taken from the inhabitants’ register, is used to identify surname regions and check correlations with dialect areas described in this space. The results obtained in this research show many similarities in the distribution of surname regions with dialect areas recognized by traditional dialectology studies. The conclusions of the study present the results obtained together with some of the explanatory proposals on the historical constitution of the linguistic diversity of this area.

The article identifies place-name etymologies as a powerful tool in constructing national spaces. Since place names derive from one language or another, often visibly so, competing nationalisms have used them to support territorial claims. This strategy may appear trivial, but it dates back no further than the Romantic period. The article traces the story of how, by the end of the nineteenth century, suggested place-name origins had become building blocks of two opposed visions of Romanian ethnogenesis. In a context of competing nation-building, these scholarly reconstructions were thinly disguised statements about whose ancestors had lived first in Transylvania—defined here in a broad sense as the eastern, Romanian- and Hungarian-speaking parts of the contemporary Kingdom of Hungary—and therefore who was entitled to political sovereignty. Place-name derivations had been little more than rhetorical ornaments until nationalist scholars seized on them following the 1848 revolutions. It was later still, in response to the questioning of Romance-speaking continuity in Dacia, that a positivist generation adjusted them to the principles of comparative linguistics and onomastics, the latter devised by German scholars for the study of national antiquities. With some refinements, the two views are still held today as the legitimate versions.

Hamilcar and Hannibal Barca embody a colossal father-son military legacy. Yet their family – the so-called ‘Barcid’ dynasty – has a murky history. Modern scholars have presumed that Hamilcar, the first notable historical figure to bear the name Barkas, received it as a ‘nickname’ meaning ‘lightning’. The rationale is that the name derives from the Phoenician word brq and is thus the equivalent to the Greek epithet Keraunos. There is, however, no evidence in our classical sources, to which exclusively we owe our knowledge of events, supporting this. Furthermore, the name Barca was passed on to Hamilcar’s sons, something suggestive of an inherited family surname. This article submits an alternative to the widely endorsed ‘lightning’ theory. This new perspective explores the possibility that the Barcid dynasty had roots in the city of Barce in Cyrenaica and was a relatively new addition to the Carthaginian aristocracy in the third century BC. Using textual evidence from Polybius, Diodorus and others, this fresh take clarifies other aspects of the Barcid dynasty’s tumultuous history, such as their animosity towards the Carthaginian Council of Elders and their departure to Spain in the 220s.

This paper draws attention to the twelfth-century French romance Partonopeus de Blois and its author's original use of the name ‘Byzantium’ instead of conventional ‘Greek’ or ‘Constantinopolitan Empire’. It investigates roots of the modern-day belief that the term has been applied as a designation of the medieval state only since the sixteenth century. A linguistic and literary analysis challenges the premise and explores possible scenarios of the name's introduction into the Old French text. A suggested interpretation de-emphasizes the popular east-west ideological context in favour of simpler story-telling concerns.

A military diploma of 2 July a.d. 133 (RMD I, 35), first discovered in 1960 but published several times since, has provoked a debate concerning the origin of the discharged soldier, with commentators proposing either Corinium in Britain or the Cornacates in Lower Pannonia. The new reading presented here suggests that the soldier was actually Cornovian, allowing a reassessment of the recruitment of Brittones in the Roman auxilia.