onomastics
nounUK /ˌɒ.nəʊˈmæs.tɪks/ · US /ˌɑː.noʊˈmæs.tɪks/
Etymology 1936, from the adjective onomastic (“of or belonging to naming”) (1716) with a suffix -s, from French onomastique, from Ancient Greek ὀνομαστικός (onomastikós), from ὀνομαστός (onomastós, “named”), form of ὀνομάζω (onomázō, “I name”), from ὄνομα (ónoma, “name”), from Proto-Indo-European *h₁nómn̥ (“name”) (whence English name).
1
The branch of lexicology devoted to the study of names and naming, especially the origins of names.
- Her father had long been a student of onomastics, and loved to unpack the names of people they encountered as children.2024, Susie Dent, Guilty By Definition, Zaffre, page 65:
- From the point of view of onomastics, proper names fulfill many functions (individualizing, localizing, differentiating etc.).(Can we date this quote?), David Vaculík, “Parts of the city of Ostrava – The past and current state of urbanonymy”, in Masaryk University Brno, page 405:
- Derived terms
- anthroponomastics, coronomastics, psychoonomastics, socio-onomastics, toponomastics
- Related terms
- onomastic, onomastically, onomastician, onomasticon, etymology, nomenclature, nomenclaturist