[1] The organization investigates cultural insights, settlement history, and linguistic characteristics revealed in names.
[5] In the early 1950s, members of the American Dialect Society felt that there ought to be another organization focused on the function of proper nouns.
[5] George R. Stewart, a founding member of the ANS,[8] described his vision for using Names to define the field of onomastics.
[9] As of January 2021, all current and archived issues of Names became available for free via the Open Access program at the University of Pittsburgh.
[11] The Emerging Scholar Award recognizes names researchers in the early stages of their academic or professional careers.
Nominated names are judged on three criteria: linguistic innovation, potential to impact language use, and ability to capture national attention.