The American Name Society is requesting nominations for the “Names of the Year for 2024”. The names selected will be ones that best illustrate, through their creation and/or use during the past 12 months, important trends in the culture of the United States. It is not necessary, however, for a nominated name to have originated in the US. Any name can be nominated as long as it has been prominent in North American cultural discourse during the past year.  Nominations are called for in the following categories:

• Personal Names: Names or nicknames of individual real people or individual animals.
• Place Names: Names or nicknames of any real geographical location, including all natural features, political subdivisions, streets, and buildings. Names of national or ethnic groups based on place names could be included here.
• Trade Names: Names of real commercial products, as well as names of both for-profit and non-profit incorporated companies and organizations, including businesses and universities.
• Artistic & Literary Names: Names of fictional persons, places, or institutions, in any written, oral, or visual medium, as well as titles of art works, books, plays, television programs, or movies. Such names are deliberately given by the creator of the work.
• E-Names: Names of persons, figures, places, products, businesses, institutions, operations, organizations, platforms, and movements that exist in the virtual world.
• Miscellaneous Names: Any name which does not fit in the above five categories, such as names created by linguistic errors, names of particular inanimate objects, names of unorganized political movements, names of languages, etc. In most cases, such items would be capitalized in everyday English orthography.

Winners will be chosen in each category, and then a final vote will determine the overall Name of the Year. Anyone may nominate a name. The discussion will be conducted by Laurel Sutton, ANS President and Name of the Year Coordinator.

You can nominate names via this form: https://nick662.typeform.com/to/qiS2bXas

Advance nominations must be received no later than December 31, 2024, at midnight Pacific. 

The winning names will be selected on January 9, 2025 during an online meeting via Eventbrite. Tickets are free and can be ordered here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/ans-name-of-the-year-discussion-and-vote-2025-tickets-1071821640379

The URL to our Zoom room will be sent to everyone who registers for this event.