English-Romanian Dictionary of Name-related Terms. Dicționar englez-român de termeni referitori la nume

Onomastic studies in Romania have got a long and prolific tradition, particularly due to the research undertaken by some reputed linguists such as acad. Alexandru Graur, Nicolae A. Constantinescu, Teodor Oancă, Domnița Tomescu, Gheorghe Bolocan, Daiana Felecan, Oliviu Felecan, Mircea Ciubotaru etc. Studies on names, both theoretical and applicative, have been thriving in academic institutes, university research centres and doctoral schools across the country. However, we are not familiar with any systematic lexicographic approach to Romanian onomastic terminology, which justifies our enterprise.

The idea of creating a bilingual (English – Romanian) dictionary of onomastic terms arose from the personal need to use appropriate equivalent terms for the multiple categories of names studied during the doctoral research in the field of literary onomastics. Benefiting from direct access to reference works, published mainly in English, enabled us to compile, at an early stage, a fairly comprehensive list of terms referring to names, which we completed as we introduced definitions, examples and etymologies. Starting from the standardized set of terms comprised in the list proposed by the ICOS Terminology Group, we found that there is a myriad of name-related terms that do not necessarily belong to onomastic terminology. One example is the geographical terminology proposed by UNGEGN experts – United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names – who aim at the national standardization of geographical names. Thus, from the glossary of Romanian onomastic terms we had proposed initially, we reached the geographical, branding, and scientific terminologies, which are liable to cover even more name-related terms.