Onomastics Onomastics is the study of names, including personal and place names. Each sub-division of onomastics has its own specialised name: Toponymics- study of place-names; Anthroponymics – study of (old) personal names. Within each sub-division there are many specialised topics, such as hydronyms (water placenames), metronyms (personal names derived from the mother). However, there is no term just for the study of surnames. So here is an opportunity to establish your own term. The act of naming seems to common to all cultures in all times. For your own culture, can you list entities that are always named, sometimes named, never named? For instance, we name our pets, we occasionally name our cars, but despite spending a third our lives on them, we do not name our beds. But what defines a “name” ? What is a Name? Does a name have inherent properties that can be defined? Are there grammatical rules that can delimit a name? Is there a pot called names, that all the following can be placed in? Daffodils, Volkswagen, Philip, Mawer, Everest, Red Rum, Sitting Bull, Hammersmith, The man who murdered Caesar Can you attempt a definition of “Name” that encompasses personal, place, brand, common nouns, noun phrases and appellatives? A hard nut, because neither can linguists When a name is a name, may not depend on inherent properties, but on context If I refer to ‘The high street’ or ‘the old vicarage’ or the ‘london road’, I may be using these as names or merely as appellatives. I can say ‘Hitler became Chancellor of Germany’ and ‘He’s a right Hitler’ , when the first is a name and the second a common noun River Island is not a river island (i.e. it is a fashion chain)