2025 SNSBI Autumn Day Conference (Online)

The Society for Name Studies in Britain and Ireland held a one-day online conference, Names Abroad – Names From Abroad, organized and chaired by Peder Gammeltoft, on Saturday 25 October 2025.

The conference focussed on two interconnected areas:

A) Current Name Research in Scandinavia, with a UK relevance Papers exploring current onomastic research in Scandinavia, with a research angle with relevance for the British Isles.

B) Names of other origins in UK and elsewhere Papers addressing the influences of incoming cultures on naming practices, including those examining migration and its impact on onomastic landscapes, colonial and postcolonial naming patterns, integration of names from diverse linguistic communities, and adaptation and transformation of names across linguistic boundaries.

11.16-12.00: Keynote: Lasse Hämäläinen, English or local language? Language choices in online usernames

The internet and social media bring together people from various cultural and linguistic backgrounds. In the multilingual online contexts, English is the by far most commonly used lingua franca. The dominance of English extends even to local online communities where some other language is primarily used. Words, phrases and abbreviations are being borrowed from English, and usernames – names of personal user accounts that people can register to themselves – often contain elements taken from English. This presentation examines the language choices people make when creating usernames for themselves: do they choose name elements from English or their own mother tongue – or even from some other language? The main data used in the presentation come from Finnish online communities (Hämäläinen 2020), but examples are also given from studies conducted in other countries (see Hämäläinen 2022). The presentation also discusses potential reasons for using English name elements in non-English communities. One reason might be simply stylistic; English could be considered somehow “cooler” than using the local language. However, username in English might also be a practical choice. Many people prefer to use the same username in different online communities, some of which might be local and others global. Username elements in English probably have the best chance to be understood by other users in those various online communities worldwide.

References: Hämäläinen, Lasse 2020: User names in Finnish online communities. Studia Anthroponymica Scandinavica 35 pp. 177–189. https:kgaa.bokorder.sesv-SEserie144studia-anthroponymica-scandinavica; Hämäläinen, Lasse 2022: From Bonehead to @realDonaldTrump: A Review of Studies on Online Usernames. Names 70(2) pp. 36–53. https:doi.org10.5195names.2022.2364

12.10-12.40: Osward Chanda, ‘Identity switch for survival’: From Chanda Bulaya to Samson Jackson, a black African in England, 1914-35

Identity switch can be used for personal survival. In this archival study, using records from Zambian and UK archives and newspaper articles, I demonstrate how a British soldier and well-known showman, Chanda Bulaya leveraged this idea between 1914 when he arrived in England to his death in 1935. Born Chanda, in about 1895 in Kasama North-eastern Rhodesia (now Zambia), Chanda switched names at least seven times depending on his circumstances. He was known as Chanda, Chanda Bulaya, Bulaya Chanda, Samson Jackson, Samson Bulaya, Henry William Jackson, Chinaka Chanda Kaula Luale and ‘Chief Luale’. Samson Jackson was one of only few black Africans who fought on the Western Front during the First World War (henceforth WWI). Acknowledging that little attention has been accorded to how continental black Africans fared in white-dominated environments, Jackson’s case will be used to fill in this glaring gap. Changes in the social environment compelled Chanda to alter his identity as a means of survival, a common practice in his native land at the time. The study departs from works on labour migration in Zambia which mainly focus on local movements to the Copperbelt or to other territories within Central and Southern Africa. It also contrasts a typical focus on local recruitment or conscription of Zambians for WWI via traditional chiefs. The study further distinguishes ‘Chief Luale’ as a continental African who managed his own work in the circus in Europe and who did not have strikingly peculiar personal features. This case study may enhance our understanding of how colonialism affected the identities of African people, the economic and social exclusion experienced by Africans in Europe during WWI and in the interwar period, how Chanda effectively negotiated his identity to survive, and showing why some African migrants, historically and at present, have failed to return to Africa.

12.41-13.10: Birgit Eggert, English first names in Denmark – a changing history

The use of English first names in Denmark goes back to the late Viking Age and continues to evolve in the present day. This paper will first provide an overview of the influence of English on Danish naming practices up to the late twentieth century. Subsequently, it will present findings from a recent study examining the prevalence of English first names among newborns in contemporary Denmark. During the Viking Age, a limited number of Anglo-Saxon names were introduced into Denmark, and from the late Middle Ages through to the seventeenth century, a considerable influx of Scottish immigrants settled in Denmark. However, these early English influences left little impact on Danish naming, largely due to adaptation into Danish name forms. Then, by the late eighteenth century, English merchants and ship captains began to settle in Danish cities, and now it contributed to the introduction of English given names such as William, James, and Charles into the Danish naming repertoire. The nineteenth century saw a further increase in the use of English names, coinciding with rising literacy rates and the influence of English literature. However, in the early decades of the twentieth century, English given names gained particular popularity among the working classes. This widespread adoption led to a degree of social stigma, resulting in these names being largely avoided by other segments of the population. In recent years, an increasing number of English-origin given names, e.g. Elliot and Lily, have appeared among the most popular names for newborns in Denmark, suggesting that the earlier social stigmas are fading. The study investigates which English names have entered contemporary usage, it identifies the time frame for the popularity, and examines these trends in relation to historical patterns of English name adoption in Denmark.

References: Kristian Hald, 1974: 2. angelsaksiske navne. In: Personnavne i Danmark. Middelalderen. København: Dansk Historisk Fællesforening, p. 12-20; Torben Kisbye, 1988: John Jamieson > Hans Jacobsen. Helsingørskotternes navne – et eksempel på transponeret personnomenklatur. In: Studia anthroponymica Scandinavica 6, p. 89-126; † Torben Kisbye, 1990: Benny, Brian, Johnny og Dennis. Om de engelske drengenavnes historie i Danmark som klassespecifikt fænomen. In: Studia anthroponomica Scandinavica 8, p. 73-117; Eva Villarsen Meldgaard, 1990: Studier i københavnske fornavne 1650-1950. København: C.A. Reitzels Forlag AS; Statistics Denmark (Danmarks Statistik): on personal names https:www.dst.dkenStatistikemnerborgerenavne

14.10-14.40: Ellie Rye and Aindí Mac Giolla Chomhghaill: Ad Saltum Salmonis: a name from abroad, but is Leixlip English or Norse?

In this paper, we reassess the etymology of the place-name Leixlip. (The official Irish version Léim an Bhradáin is a translation.) Usually put forward as an example of Old Norse toponymy in Ireland, albeit by far the furthest inland (Fellows-Jensen, 2015, p. 280; Mac Giolla Easpaig, 2002, p.452), Leixlip has been derived from ON *lax-hlaup ‘salmon leap’ (Joyce, 1869, p. 109) and *lax-hleypa ‘place where salmon leap’ (Oftedal, 1976, p. 131; cf. Marstrander 1915, p. 149). However, the earliest surviving references (1202–1294) are exclusively in Latin, and when non-Latin attestations of the name Leixlip emerge (1295–) there are considerable phonological difficulties with derivation from the Norse source-forms. Middle English origin appears to have been ruled out with no discussion of the relevant English toponymy (Oftedal, 1976, 131; Bugge,1901, p. 309). Based on an analysis of that evidence, we reassess the historical attestations of Leixlip collected by the Placenames Branch (logainm.ie), and argue that the name is a plausible Middle English formation, as suggested more than a century ago by Marstrander (1915, p. 149).

References: Bugge, A. (1901). Nordisk sprog og nordisk nationalitet i Irland. Thieles Bogtrykkeri; Fellows-Jensen, G. (2015). Through a glass darkly: some sidelights on Viking influence on personal names and place-names in Ireland. In H.B. Clarke & R. Johnson (Eds.), The Vikings in Ireland and Beyond (pp. 268–283). Four Courts Press; Joyce, P. W. (1869). Irish names of places (Vol. 1). Phoenix; Mac Giolla Easpaig, D. (2002). L’influence scandinave sur la toponymie irlandaise. In É. Ridel (Ed.), L’héritage maritime des vikings en Europe de L’Ouest (pp. 441–482). Presses universitaires de Caen; Marstrander, C. J. S. (1915). Bidrag til det norske sprogs historie i Irland. Dybwad; Oftedal, M. (1976). Scandinavian place-names in Ireland. In B. Almqvist & D. Greene (Eds.), Proceedings of the Seventh Viking Congress (pp. 125–133). Viking Society for Northern Research; “Léim an BhradáinLeixlip” (2008–25). In The Placenames Database of Ireland. https:www.logainm.ieen/893.

14.41-15.10: Elizabeth Hopkins (Early Career), Scandinavian influence on English place-names in the dative plural

Many Old and Middle English place-names take a dative plural ending in -um, often with a locative function (e.g. (æt) Bathum ‘at the baths’, modern Bath). Old Scandinavian shared this inflectional suffix; thus, we also find dative plural formations in English place-names of Scandinavian (or possible Scandinavian) origin (e.g. (in) Bouthum ‘at the booths’, modern Bootham). Hald (1942:48) postulates that contact between Scandinavian and Old English influenced the development of these forms. Dative plural place-names are most common in the Danelaw areas of northern England, where Scandinavian settlement was highest (Smith 1956:225). Moreover, the distinctive dative plural ending -um is typically retained in the north, but becomes -un or -en in southern varieties (Watts 2004:lvi). This distribution suggests that contact with Scandinavian speakers, who possessed the same inflectional ending in their own language, may have facilitated the formation and survival of dative plural place-names. Furthermore, names of this type were common in medieval Denmark and Norway (Wrander 1983:132), raising the possibility of direct name transfer or the bestowal of familiar formations by Scandinavian settlers. Although Wrander (1983) comprehensively surveys English place-names in the dative plural, no rigorous empirical evaluation yet exists of the Scandinavian contact hypothesis. In this talk, I examine place-names in the dative plural from two areas, north Lincolnshire (Danelaw) and Shropshire (non-Danelaw), using data from Wrander (1983) and my ongoing PhD research. I situate these names in their linguistic and onomastic context, by comparing them firstly to the forms of the dative plural in contemporary non-onomastic texts (e.g. the Orrmulum), and secondly to contemporary dative plural place-names in Scandinavia. I thereby evaluate whether such names could feasibly have arisen (and been maintained) organically in English as a result of language-internal processes, or whether a contact-based explanation of their genesis and continued use is more likely.

References: Hald, K. (1942). De Danske Stednavne paa -um. Copenhagen: Universitets-Jubilaets danske Samfund, No. 333; Smith, A. H. (1956). English Place-Name Elements, Volume II. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; Watts, V. E. (2004). The Cambridge Dictionary of English Place-Names. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; Wrander, N. (1983). English Place-Names in the Dative Plural (Lund Studies in English 65). Lund: C W Gleerup.

15.26-15.55: Johnny GG Jakobsen, Danish colonial street names in Tranquebar and the West Indies – and their postcolonial afterlife

The unified kingdoms of Denmark-Norway established a number of colonies all around the world in the 17th and 18th centuries: Danish East Indies (with Tranquebar and Serampore) (from 1620), Danish Guinea (present-day Ghana) (from 1659), Danish West Indies (present-day US Virgin Islands) (from 1672) and Greenland (from 1721). With the Dano-Norwegian colonial administration also came a colonial toponomy, which to a large degree (although far from exclusively) was in the Danish language (which was also the administrative language in Norway). This paper will present and discuss the Danish colonial street names in the towns of Charlotte Amalie (St. Thomas), Christianstad and Frederikstad (St. Croix), and Tranquebar (now Tarangambadi, India). What kind of names were used? What explicit or implicit meaning can be read from the names? How do the names relate to contemporary street names in Denmark-Norway? In addition, I will describe what happened to the names when the colonial administration was terminated (in 1845 for Tranquebar and in 1917 for the West Indies).

15.56-16.15: Xiang Lin, UK (Early Career): From Cantonese Alleyways to Imperial Avenues: Onomastics in Hong Kong’s Street-Names

This study examines Hong Kong’s odonymic landscape through a mixed-methods analysis of 4,585 official street-names drawn from the government’s e-HongKongGuide annual map gazetteer. While these odonyms broadly follow the specific + generic structure familiar in Britain, the city’s bilingual (English–Chinese) signage, colonial history, and ongoing cultural exchange have produced distinctive structural, translational, and thematic patterns. The linguistic analysis reveals both strong and weak correspondences between English and Chinese generics, shaped by conceptual gaps and bicultural sensibilities. Loanwords such as praya (Portuguese) and viale (Italian) illustrate the incorporation of foreign lexemes, while Rednaxela Terrace preserves a historical orthographic error. A recurring ‘two-character stitching’ practice—combining auspicious Chinese morphemes into novel specifics—emerges as a distinctive but underexplored strategy in Sinophone onomastics. The sociocultural analysis identifies two main drivers of thematic naming: the branding of modern gated communities through coherent sets of odonyms (e.g. Californian cities, French vineyards), and the persistence of colonial legacies through transplanted British place-names, royal titles, and institutional references. The continued presence of these British-era names after the 1997 handover reflects their integration into the city’s identity. By situating Hong Kong’s street-names within broader discussions of language contact and cross-cultural adaptation, this study demonstrates their value to both Sinophone and Anglophone onomastic research. While certain phenomena are unique to the Hong Kong context, many have broader applicability to other naming contexts shaped by multilingualism and cultural exchange.