Theme: Names in Fiction

Guest editors: Lasse Hämäläinen & Milla Juhonen (University of Helsinki)

Names of characters, locations, and other entities often have several important functions in fictional stories. Especially characters’ proper names have been seen as an essential part of the characterization, describing for example nature, appearance, or the inner world of the characters (Cavill 2016). Toponyms in literature, on the other hand, have an important role in world-building, and the use of toponyms has been considered as an efficient way to construct a sense of place without relying on long descriptions (Ameel & Ainiala 2018).
Literary onomastics – the study of proper names in literature – has long been a significant subfield of onomastics. It has its own section in The Oxford Handbook of Names and Naming (Hough 2016), as well as in many ICOS Congresses and their Proceedings. Moreover, two of the past volumes of Onoma (vol. 40 and 53) and a few issues of Names (e.g., 16:4, 35:3, 64:2, 70:4) have been dedicated to it. There are also monographs and edited volumes on the theme (see Gibka 2019, Robbins 2023, and Nick 2026 as some of the latest examples). In addition to these, studies on literary onomastics have obviously been published in many other publications as well.
As the term suggests, literary onomastics has predominantly focused on works of literature, mainly novels, short stories, and poetry. Meanwhile, names used in audiovisual forms of storytelling – films, tv shows, music, and video games – have remained with somewhat mo-derate scholarly attention (see, e.g., Martin 2011; Marshall 2014; Butler 2015; 2016; Neethling 2016; Bugheșiu 2018; 2024; Gibka 2018; Hämäläinen 2018; Kuzmenko 2019; 2023; 2024), especially conside-ring their great role in the contemporary media and society.

With the theme Names in Fiction, onomasticians are encouraged to widen the scope of literary onomastics to other formats of fiction. How do the audiovisual formats influence the usage of names in sto-ries? An interesting and fruitful approach might also be to compare name usage in different formats of the same story, such as a novel and its film or TV adaptation. However, submissions focusing solely on literary works are also welcomed. The studies can be focused on all types of proper names used in fiction: names of characters, locations, brands, animals, etc.

Abstracts:
If you want to publish your article in Onoma 62, please send your abstract to the guest editors via email (lasse.j.hamalainen@helsinki.fi, milla.juhonen@helsinki.fi) by 30 September 2026. The abstracts should be written in English, and they should be no longer than 300 words (references not included). The guest editors evaluate the abstracts by their overall scientific quality and their compatibility with the volume theme. The evaluation results are communicated to the authors in October 2026.

Full articles:
Authors whose abstracts are accepted to the volume are asked to send their full-length articles to the guest editors by 31 January 2027. The articles can be written in English, French, or German. They should be 5,000–8,000 words long (abstracts and references included) and follow all the formatting instructions provided in Onoma Style Sheet (https://onomajournal.org/style-guidelines/). All the articles will be evaluated by two anonymous peer reviewers. For more information about the journal and its policies (e.g., AI usage), see https://onomajournal.org/instructions-for-authors/.

Important dates:
• Deadline for abstracts: 30 September 2026
• Notifications of acceptance: October 2026
• Deadline for full-length articles: 31 January 2027
• Publishing: December 2027

See CfP and references attached here.