International terminology
Terminology in onomastics is a complex and difficult matter which the Terminology
Group
of ICOS is at
present trying to
resolve. It will report here in due course. Since many of the relevant technical terms used internationally are of Greek
origin, beginners
in onomastics without knowledge of Greek are sometimes puzzled by the categories we use, so we include here some
frequently-met terms (in their English forms) without prejudice as to what the
Terminology Group will
eventually recommend.
Name in the list below should be taken specifically as proper name.
anthroponym: name of a human being
astronym: name of a star (or more loosely of a constellation or other heavenly body)
charactonym: (irregular; sometimes used for) name of a (literary) character
chrematonym: name of a politico-economic or commercial or cultural institution or thing; a catch-all category
endonym: the locally used name, esp. for a place (contrast
exonym)
ergonym: sometimes used for the name of an institution or commercial firm
ethnonym: name of a people or tribe
exonym: name used by speakers of other languages instead of a native name, e.g. Ger. Pressburg for
Bratislava
hodonym: name of a street or road
hydronym: name of a river, lake or other body of water
hypocoristic: a colloquial, usually unofficial, name of an entity; a pet-name or "nickname"
metronym: name of a human being making reference to that person's mother
oikonym or (latinized) oeconym: name of a house or other building
oronym: name of a hill, mountain or mountain-range
patronym: name of a human being making reference to that person's father
teknonym: name of a human being making reference to that person's child
theonym: name of a god or of God
toponym: name of a place, sometimes in a broad sense, sometimes used in a restricted sense of inhabited
places
zoonym: name of an animal
In the most precise terminology, sets of such names are called by a term formed by adding a -y
to the element
-onym (as in Yoruba anthroponymy, Czech toponymy), and the study of such sets is called, slightly
confusingly, by a name with -onomastics replacing -onym (hydronomastics `the study of river-names,
etc.'). But such pairs of words as toponymy and toponomastics may be found in use as loose equivalents
for the discipline-names (especially in English).
Whatever you do, avoid the common
error of spelling the words in -onymy with **-onomy. Astronymy is not the same as astronomy.
Note again that, within the discipline of onomastics, -onym(y) in these terms relates to proper names
only.
Ideally, dendronymy would be the
study of proper names of individual trees, like The Del Norte Titan, the gigantic Californian redwood discovered
in June 1998 in Jedediah Smith Redwoods State Park, California, USA, but, outside onomastics, terms such as
zoonym `animal-name' and phytonym `plant-name' are
occasionally found in use for the classificatory ("scientific") names for natural kinds, like Bellis
perennis, the daisy, or even Sequoia
sempervirens, the Californian redwood. To an onomastician, such terms are taxonyms `classificatory names',
not proper names.
The advantage of having international terms such as these is that they can be standardized across different languages
with minimal
adjustment.
But in some languages (certainly in non-technical writing), terms made up of native elements are preferred to
international terminology: for instance nom de lieu, enw lle, ortnamn, paikannimi,
Ortsname,
plaatsnaam, helynév, place-name, nombre de lugar, nama tempat, pleknaam,
ainm-ŕite, mistni jmeno, etc., all of which
mean `place-name', i.e. `toponym'. The problem which has stimulated the current ICOS project is that the international
terms are not all used in precisely the same way in all languages or by linguists of all traditions.
See also the glossary of place-naming terminology produced
for UNGEGN by Professor Naftali Kadmon.
