This study examined, from the perspective of sound symbolism, whether the phonological properties of foreign player names in Japanese professional baseball are associated with hit-by-pitch (HBP) and intentional walks (IW). Data were collected from 682 foreign batters who played in Nippon Professional Baseball between 1952 and 2023. For each player, the number of morae and voiced obstruents (VOs) such as [b], [d], [g], and [z] in their katakana-registered names was recorded. Generalized linear models were used to analyze the associations between these phonological features and the counts of HBP and IW. Players whose names contained two VOs had a significantly higher HBP rate, whereas no significant effects were observed for morae or IW. These findings suggest that, in line with sound-symbolic effects, VOs in names are associated with a slight increase in HBP. More broadly, these findings raise the possibility that sound-symbolic properties of names may extend beyond impression formation and be reflected in actual performance-related outcomes, albeit weakly. However, the observed association was small in magnitude and is unlikely to be practically meaningful.
Researchers studying nicknaming practices have uncovered a variety of interesting features across a range of social groups. This paper expands this line of research by examining the norms, bases, and functions of personal "trail names" among Appalachian Trail (AT) long-distance hikers. This voluntary and relatively egalitarian leisure social world provides an ideal setting for studying nicknaming practices, as virtually all participants adopt a trail name for themselves during their journey. The research design primarily consists of interviews with 107 long-distance hikers conducted by the first author in 2025 while hiking 425 miles of the AT across six states. Findings reveal that long-distance hikers display a remarkable degree of agency in trail naming practices, reflective of the "hike your own hike" philosophy that pervades the long-distance hiking social world on the AT. Bases for trail names vary, with many names blending multiple characteristics, making them deeply meaningful for hikers. Functions of trail names include boundary maintenance, feelings of in-group acceptance, anxiety reduction, and identity transformation. The article's discussion includes the theoretical implications of these findings and concludes with suggestions for future research.
This article examines a specific form of anthroponymic taboo: the prohibition against uttering a combatant's proper name at the decisive moment of battle. Using the Earl Brand / Ribold and Guldborg ballad complex as its central case study, the article argues that this prohibition constitutes a historically meaningful onomastic pattern rather than a merely decorative narrative motif. The study combines close reading of the British and Scandinavian ballad record with comparative onomastic theory and anthropological work on name avoidance, true-name ideology, and verbal danger. The analysis shows that the interdiction "name me not" operates as a context-bound rule of anthroponymic management, one activated under conditions of mortal risk, kin-conflict, and liminality. In the northern ballads, the heroine's breach of this rule triggers the hero's death, thereby converting naming into a fatal speech act. The article further argues that the motif preserves the convergence of two older logics: tactical non-identification in feud warfare and a wider belief that the personal name is an exposed extension of the self. By reframing the motif as an onomastic phenomenon, the article contributes to scholarship on names as socially regulated and pragmatically dangerous forms, and proposes the category "dead-naming prohibition" for traditions in which pronouncing a person's proper name is believed to precipitate injury, capture, or death.
Vegan and vegetarian brands exhibit ingenuity through word formation processes to signal vegetal origin. This paper analyzes a manually compiled corpus of 563 product names from 55 brands to identify the orthographic, morphological, and semantic devices used to navigate regulatory pressures while achieving market distinctiveness. By examining these linguistic mechanisms, the study explores how naming strategies communicate that products are meatless alternatives while preserving consumer appeal. The findings reveal five primary conceptual strategies, indicating a varying degree of similarity to animal-based counterparts: (1) approximate identity, achieved through vowel-based orthographic alteration and unorthodox spellings (e.g., cheeze); (2) negation and absence, utilizing compounding and negative suffixation (e.g., no-pork, fishless); (3) conceptual hybridization, effected via linguistic blending (e.g., soyrizo); (4) positive valence, employing positively connotated words (e.g., ultimate); and (5) equivalence, established through constructions denoting sameness (e.g., just like). Ultimately, these devices not only serve as innovative mechanisms to communicate the product's plant-based nature but also help bypass legal nomenclature restrictions while contributing to the introduction of novelty, creativity, and "spiciness" to Modern English.
This note applies NLP-based polarity analysis and topic modeling to explore the stigmatization of the Chinese occupational by-name wanghong. Using over 40,000 Weibo posts (2014-2023), the study reveals a shift toward negative sentiment and identifies key thematic patterns. It demonstrates how NLP methods can support socio-onomastic inquiry by tracing affective and ideological dynamics in digital naming practices, while also offering an efficient and objective methodological approach for investigating other socially salient by-names.
