Onomastics (or onomatology in older texts) is the study of proper names, including their etymology, history, and use.
Scholars studying onomastics are called onomasticians.
Onomastics has applications in data mining, with applications such as named-entity recognition, or recognition of the origin of names.
[1][2] It is a popular approach in historical research, where it can be used to identify ethnic minorities within populations[3][4] and for the purpose of prosopography.
Onomastics originates from the Greek onomastikós (ὀνομαστικός, 'of or belonging to naming'),[5][6] itself derived from ónoma (ὄνομα, 'name').