The SNSBI Essay Prize

Recent winners

• 2023: Hannah Ellis (Sheffield Hallam University), Cedar Heights: exploring the contexts and graphic language(s) of suburban house signs in the UK.
• 2022: no prize
• 2021: Tristan Alphey (St Cross College, University of Oxford), Black and white agnomina in early medieval “England” [agnōmen means ‘nickname’, ‘byname’]
• 2020: Annika Ester Maresia (Jesus College, University of Oxford), Make it make sense: some considerations on rune-names and onomastics
• 2019: Emma Heywood (Glasgow), ‘Kinship marking’ in Anglo-Saxon personal names
• 2018: Katy Thompson, Local history and cultural identity: a study of the street-names of St Andrews
• 2017: Erik Merriman, Time gentlemen please! A toponymic investigation into the public houses of Manchester and their contribution to the linguistic landscape
• 2015: Robert Briggs, Place-names in Old English tūn and ‘the long eighth century’
• 2013–2014: no prize
• 2012 (joint winners): Harriet Leslie (Glasgow), A study of the child-naming practices of the Scottish quakers between 1700 and 1825, and
  Eleanor Rye (Nottingham),
  A quantitative comparison of Scandinavian linguistic influences on the minor names of North Stainley and Nunwith (West Yorkshire) and Hurworth, Neasham and Sadberge (County Durham)
• 2011: Dr Gerry Smyth (Liverpool), Place-naming and space-knowing: an analysis of two Irish poems
• 2010: Rachael Hamilton (Glasgow), Names and meaning: a study of transparency in personal names
• 2008: Sheila Young (Aberdeen), Names of oil and gas fields in the central and northern sectors of the North Sea and part of the Atlantic margin
• 2005:
  Ellen Bramwell (Glasgow),
  An investigation into the community names of North Uist, Western Isles
• 2004: Jacob King (Edinburgh), A discussion of the derivation of ‘Lochy’ in Adomnan’s ‘The Life of Saint Columba’
• 2002:
  Alison Grant (Glasgow),
  A new approach to inversion compounds in north-west England
• 1995: Linda Corrigan (Manchester), Old English and Scandinavian place-names of the Kendal barony in Westmorland

SNSBI Essay Prize – rules (from 2022)

1. A prize of £100 will be awarded annually for the best essay on any topic relating to the place-names and/or personal names of England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Man or the Channel Islands.
2. Submissions are invited from all students and other researchers. The prize will normally be awarded to those who have not previously published work in onomastics.
3. Essays should be approximately 5,000 words in length.
4. Essays should make an original contribution to the subject.
5. Essays should be double-spaced, with pages numbered in a single sequence of Arabic numerals, and should include a bibliography of sources and cited works.
6. Submissions should include an abstract of up to 250 words.
7. An anonymised electronic copy of the essay and abstract should be submitted by 31 October each year to secretary@snsbi.org.uk. (For 2024, the deadline is extended to 31 December.)
8. Entries will be blind refereed, with the final decision made by a panel normally consisting of the President, the two Vice-Presidents, and the Editor(s) of Nomina, who may consider the essay for publication.
9. Provided a submission of sufficient merit is received, the winner will be announced at the next AGM, held in the spring of the following year.

For more information on the Essay Prize, please get in touch.