ICOS Glossary terms

Question 1

allonym

Answer 1

a variant of a name stemming from the same etymological root – e. g. Joe for Joseph

Question 2

anthroponomasticon

Answer 2

an anthroponomastic dictionary or its mental or theoretical counterpart

Question 3

anthroponomastics

Answer 3

branch of onomastics scholarly studying anthroponyms (NOTE: Sometimes
also called anthroponymy which is not recommended in this sense.)

Question 4

anthroponym

Answer 4

proper name of a person or a group of persons

Question 5

anthroponymy

Answer 5

the set of anthroponyms within a specific territory/region, language, period of
time etc. (NOTE: Sometimes also used for a branch of onomastics scholarly studying
anthroponyms which is not recommended.)

Question 6

brand name

Answer 6

proper name of a brand, e.g. Toyota

Question 7

by-name

Answer 7

informal, additional name of a person, a place, an object etc. – e.g. John Brown alias
Shorty in English, Juana Martinéz alias Morena in Spanish, Staffan Nyström alias Lane in Swedish,
Big Apple for New York, Big Blue for IBM

Question 8

choronym

Answer 8

proper name of a larger geographical or administrative unit of land – e.g. Africa, Sibir’ (Siberia), Suomi, Dalmacija, Toscana, Bretagne, Steiermark, Castilla, La Mancha. (NOTE: In some languages the term macrotoponym is used for an inhabited large area.)

Question 9

cryptonym

Answer 9

a secret name used for the protection of its bearer

Question 10

denominatum

Answer 10

name bearer; a person, an object etc. carrying or addressed by a certain proper
name

Question 11

deonym

Answer 11

common noun derived or originating from a proper name – e.g. tweed from the river name Tweed, watt from the family name Watt, Spanish quevedos ‘pince-nez, a kind of glasses’ from the surname Quevedo, Asturian xuan ‘simpleton, dullard, dimwit’ from the personal name Xuan. (NOTE: In many languages the term eponym is used in this sense.)

Question 12

deonymisation

Answer 12

loss of the onymic function and/or character of a proper name

Question 13

endonym

Answer 13

proper name of a geographical feature in an official or well-established language occurring in that area where the feature is situated – e.g. Venezia in Italian (not Venice), Praha in Czech (not Prague)

Question 14

eponym

Answer 14

proper name of a person or group of persons, forming the basis of the name of another person, family, place, object etc. – e.g. personal name Washington – toponym Washington, personal name Albert – toponym Lake Albert/Lac Albert

Question 15

ergonym

Answer 15

name of a product or a brand; NOTE: The term chrematonym in some languages is
used in this sense, but can also have a broader meaning (i.a. proper names of social events,
institutions, organisations…)

Question 16

ethnonym

Answer 16

proper name of an ethnic group (a tribe, a folk, a clan etc.), or a member of this group, e.g. Italians, Bavarians, Croat, Frenchman, Zulu. (NOTE: Ethnonyms are not treated as proper names in some languages and by some scholars, e.g. ingleses in Spanish. According to some theories, ethnonyms are proper names both in plural and singular, in other theories, ethnonyms in
the plural are proper names, in the singular appellatives.)

Question 17

exonym

Answer 17

name used in a specific language for a geographical feature situated outside the area where that language is widely spoken, and differing in its form from the name used in the area where the geographical feature is situated – e.g. French Londres for London, German Warschau for Warszawa, Bangkok for Krung Thep, Spanish Ginebra for Genève

Question 18

family name

Answer 18

hereditary name of a family or a member of a family with such a name – e.g. Smith, Farkas, Neumann, Herrera

Question 19

first name

Answer 19

name which a person is given at birth, baptism or at some other significant moment in life – e.g. Charles, Ivan, Giuseppe, Davor, Sophie, Anna, María, Motlalepula ( NOTE: First name does not always have to stand in the first position.)

Question 20

field name

Answer 20

name of a small piece of rural land

Question 21

hagionym

Answer 21

name of a saint (NOTE: This term should not be used for a name of sacred objects or places.)

Question 22

hodonym

Answer 22

route name (i.e. proper name of a street, square, motorway, country road, path, tunnel, ford, bridge, footbridge, railway line etc.) – e.g. Portobello Road, Eurotunnel, Via Baltica, Marktgasse, D1

Question 23

hydronym

Answer 23

name of a body of water (i.e. name of a sea, bay, strait, lake, swamp, fishpond, storage lake, spring, well, river, brook, waterfall etc.) – e.g. Atlantic Ocean, Ostsee, Golfe du Lion, Lake Superior, Huang He, Niagara Falls

Question 24

hypocoristic

Answer 24

unofficial expressive form of a name morphologically derived from the personal name – e.g. Dick (for Richard) in English, Iza (for Izabela) in Polish, Nacho (for Ignacio) in Spanish, Ivica (for Ivan) in Croatian.

Question 25

inhabitant name

Answer 25

proper name of an inhabitant of a certain region, country, town, village etc., e.g. Leipziger ‘inhabitant of Leipzig’, Londoner ‘inhabitant of London’. (NOTE: Inhabitant names are not treated as proper names in some languages or by some scholars, e.g. madrileño ‘inhabitant of Madrid’ in Spanish.)

Question 26

metronym

Answer 26

personal name originating from the mother’s name – e.g. Tilgner (from the hypocoristic form Tilg/e/, derived from the anthroponym Ottilie) in German, Haničinec (from the anthroponym Hana) in Czech (NOTE: The form matronym should not be used.)

Question 27

microtoponym

Answer 27

name referring to smaller objects like fields, pastures, fences, stones, marshes, bogs, ditches etc., and in general used locally by only a limited group of people – e.g. Lange Wiese (meadow), Further Piece (field)

Question 28

namegiver

Answer 28

person, community, authority or institution naming other persons, places, objects etc.

Question 29

namegiving

Answer 29

process by or event at which a person, a place, an object is given a proper name (e.g. birth of a child, naming a ship etc.)

Question 30

nesonym

Answer 30

proper name of an island

Question 31

nickname

Answer 31

additional, usually characterising informal proper name of a person – e.g. The Governator for Arnold Schwarenegger in the US. Nicknames are a subcategory of by-names.

Question 32

onomastician

Answer 32

name researcher, a person who studies proper names in a scholarly way

Question 33

onomasticon

Answer 33

an onomastic dictionary or its mental or theoretical counterpart

Question 34

onomastics

Answer 34

the study of proper names in a scholarly way

Question 35

onymisation

Answer 35

transfer of a linguistic unit (including common nouns, adjectives, verbs, interjections, phrases etc.) to the class of proper names

Question 36

onymy

Answer 36

the set of proper names within a particular region, language, period of time etc.

Question 37

oronym

Answer 37

proper name of an elevated formation of the terrain (i.e. name of a mountain, mountain range, highland, upland, hill, rock etc.) – e.g. Aconcagua, Elbrus, Rocky Mountains, die Alpen. (NOTE: By geographers the term oronym is sometimes used in a broader sense and includes also proper names of valleys, lowlands etc.)

Question 38

patronym

Answer 38

personal name originating from the father’s name – e.g. Andersson (in Swedish), Petrov (in Russian), Fernández, Mori, Olay (in Spanish), Berendt, Berendts (in German).

Question 39

product name

Answer 39

proper name of a product (e.g. a chocolate, car, cigarette etc.), e.g. car Avensis by Toyota

Question 40

proper name

Answer 40

linguistic expression that uniquely identifies a person, a group of persons, a place, an animal or an object (ship, train...) – e.g. Earth, Zambezi, Chile, Beijing, David, Victoria, Miikkulainen, Hyundai, Sony, Das Erzgebirge

Question 41

proprialisation

Answer 41

see onymisation

Question 42

pseudonym

Answer 42

a fictitious name of a person, usually used by artists, politicians etc. as an alternative to their legal name

Question 43

psycho-onomastics

Answer 43

branch of onomastics studying names from a psycholinguistic point of view

Question 44

settlement name

Answer 44

proper name of all kinds of human settlement (cities, towns, villages, hamlets, farms, ranches, houses, etc.) – e.g. Paris, Turku, Yokohama, †Troia, Nofim (a house).

Question 45

socio-onomastics

Answer 45

branch of onomastics studying names from a sociolinguistic point of view

Question 46

street name

Answer 46

proper name of a thoroughfare in a city, town, or village (street-names are a subcategory of hodonyms) – e.g. Broadway, Baker Street, Unter den Linden

Question 47

theonym

Answer 47

proper name of a god, a goddess, or a divinity – e.g. Zeus, Odin, Diana, Morana

Question 48

toponomasticon

Answer 48

a toponomastic dictionary or its mental or theoretical counterpart

Question 49

toponomastics

Answer 49

branch of onomastics studying toponyms in a scholarly way (NOTE: Sometimes also called toponymy which is not recommended in this sense.)

Question 50

toponym

Answer 50

proper name of a place, both inhabited and uninhabited (e.g. of a mountain, water, island, wood, town, village, field, meadow, street, or route etc.; e.g. Uppsala, Mare Tranquillitatis, Amazonis Planitia, Mont Blanc, Seine, Sardinia, Auckland). NOTE: If limited to the planet Earth, toponyms can also be called geographical names.

Question 51

toponymy

Answer 51

the set of toponyms within a specific territory/region, language, period of time etc. (NOTE: Sometimes also used for a branch of onomastics scholarly studying toponyms which is not recommended.)

Question 52

zoonym

Answer 52

proper name of an animal – e.g. a dog Fido, an elephant Jumbo