Onomastics

Part of speech: noun

Pronunciation: /ˌɒ.nəʊˈmæs.tɪks/

Definitions

1. The scientific study of the origin, history, and use of proper names of all kinds
2. An academic discipline focusing on how names are created, their meanings, and their cultural significance
3. The examination and analysis of personal and place names, including their etymology and social context

Etymology: The Greek ancestor of this word was "onomastikos," which meant "of or belonging to naming," and it came from "onomastos," meaning "named," itself built on "onoma," the ordinary Greek word for "name." English first used the adjective "onomastic" in 1716, but the noun "onomastics," the study of names as a field in its own right, did not appear until 1936. Its name is therefore a descendant of a Greek word for naming, while the discipline it labels is a modern academic coinage. The Greek root reaches back much further, to the Proto-Indo-European word "*h₁nómn̥," the source of English "name" itself. English "onomastics" thus shares its ancestry with the everyday word "name," even though the two took very different paths: one stayed in plain speech for centuries, while the other was pulled out of Greek to label a scholarly pursuit.