People's Names: A Cross-Cultural Reference Guide to the Proper Use of over 40,000 Personal and Familial Names in over 100 Cultures |  | Author: Holly Ingraham
Publisher: McFarland & Company
Category: Book
Buy New: $49.95
New (4) Used (6) from $34.94
Rating:  2 reviews
Sales Rank: 1239069
Media: Library Binding
Pages: 613
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 2
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 6.1 x 1.5
ISBN: 0786401877
Dewey Decimal Number: 929.4
EAN: 9780786401871
ASIN: 0786401877
Publication Date: January 1997
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
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| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
Tens of thousands of names from almost every culture, contemporary and historical are included in this unique reference work. For each cultural group's onomasticon, an essay outlines its rules for naming, if different from English, along with its use of family names, gender specific names, and name order. A listing of at least 50 "first" names for each gender and at least 100 family names is then provided for each culture.
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| Customer Reviews:
 A Career's Worth of Accurate Naming for Writers ... January 9, 2002
4 out of 5 found this review helpful
... and reference for readers.
Actually has more like 70,000 names.
The book has many special aids for fiction writers who want to name their characters authentically, but is a handy guide to pronunciation and name etiquette for business people going international, teachers with immigrant children in their classes, HR directors, and many others (how about an authentic name for the Current Middle Ages?).
It is not exhaustive in any culture. That would require a volume each, obviously (use the annotated bibliography to find those). This is a sampler and how-to, not a geneaological record. Each chapter has a guide to use in that culture, often with special helpers like titles of nobility, pronunciation, name etiquette, or how to change the root names for all the required versions (some cultures gender family names). All include female, male, and, where applicable, family names or other added names. Names which are variants of one will be grouped together, like English variations on Smith or Charles. There are an assortment of interesting historical and cultural notes.
Writing style is breezy and informal, nicely packaging, for popular consumption, information otherwise found only in horrendously scholarly specialist studies.
Chapters, grouped by historical era, modern to most ancient, then by geographical area, include English, Scottish, Irish, Welsh, Cornish, French, Dutch & Flemish, Frisian, German, Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, Icelandic, Hispanic, Portuguese, Italian, Finnish, Estonian, Russian, Georgian, Ukrainian, Belarusan, Lithuanian, Latvian, Polish, Hungarian, Romanian, Czech & Slovak, Slovinski, Bulgarian & Macedonian, Albanian, Greek, Turkish, Armenian, Israeli, Lebanese, Arabic, Himalayan, Nepalese, Indian (many subgroups), Sri Lankan, Thai, Cambodian, Vietnamese, Laotian, Burmese/Myanmarese, Malaysian & Indonesian, Other Southeast Asian, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Mongolian, Filipino, Micronesian, Aboriginal Australian, Hawai'ian, Tahitian, Samoan, Maori, Malagasy, Assorted African, Swahili, Sesotho, Yoruba, Nigerian, Ethiopian, Tuareg, Assorted North American, Delaware/Lenni Lenape, Cherokee, Sioux/Lakota, Cheyenne, Breton, Yiddish, Victorian American, Renaissance forms of English, German, French, and Italian, Nahuatl/Aztec, Mayan, Quechua/Inca.Medieval forms of French, English, German and Italian, Provencal, Catalan & Aragonese, Basque, Byzantine, Norse, Saxon, British, Gothic & Frankish, Neo-Punic, Gaellic, Latin, Etruscan, Celtic/Gaulish & Britannic, Iranian/Persian/Median/Mitanni, Hellenic, Hebrew, Early Sanskrit, Punic & Phoenician, Ancient Egyptian, Assyrian & Babylonian, Akkadian, Other Semitic, Sumerian AND Names Without Languages, which is a guide to creating consistent-sounding "shadow languages" for original cultures in very free-ranging historicals or F&SF.
Subject index is good, but the book is so dense with names that an index of those would have doubled the size of it. Go exploring and have fun looking for any particular item.
 High variety, Low detail. February 23, 2001
4 out of 5 found this review helpful
Great for those who need a reference to a diverse pool of names fitting geographical conditions. Not useful for finding when a name was used or what mutations exist. It is therefore ideal for gaming, but for other applications, may only serve as a rib in your library, not part of the backbone of collection.
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