You will need: a pack of small (3x5) index cards, a couple of pens and a few elastic bands.  Click here to go to TIPS.

• Whenever you have a half-hour of time, take that equipment to the far back left reference section on the ground floor of the library, put it on the table of a carrel near the shelf of name books [which should be right there, but you may have to hunt for them] and make yourself comfortable.
• For each single element of your entire legal name, make a heading- card which will act as a divider for the fact cards you are going to collect.
• Take a book or two about names to your table.  Skim through to see if there is anything related to your topic and if so, prepare an "address" or "ID" card for each book coding it with a symbol or Roman numeral.  No matter what the cultural origin of your particular name, there is information in most of these books about the word order of names, about naming traditions or the history of surnames (a.k.a. 'last', or 'family' names).
• Read the history or introduction part to see if there is anything relevant to your particular names there.  Look at the table of contents to see how the book is organized, and also see if there are any special sections at the end that may be relevant.
• 'Ethnic' such as Italian, < humourous link Vietnamese, Chinese, Arabic family names
• Hyphenated first names
• Hyphenated or double last names
• If the script or characters in which the name is written relates to the significance of the name, you must include that, too with the appropriate references.
• See also why we have last names and how/why they are passed on.
• Besides looking in every single name book to see if there is anything interesting about any of your names, some will need to look in the stacks (on the 3rd floor) in geography, history and religion/mythology books.  Some will consult Bibles, the Qur'an or other scriptures.  See also an atlas.
• Whenever you come across information related to any of your names or about a naming tradition, read it and then IN YOUR OWN WORDS write down what you have discovered (even if it confirms what you think you may already know - or rather, especially if you think you already know) using not more than one card per idea.  Do not forget to code every one of these fact cards with the symbol from the address card of the item you found it in, as well as with the page number on which the information was found.  THE MAIN REASON FOR USING THIS METHOD is to provide proof and to prevent plagiarism while keeping track of page numbers.
• Do not worry about "wasting cards," since the other reason for this system of research is to allow for flexibility in arranging your findings to make up your paper.  Remember, if you use this method, there is no need for making a rough copy of your essay.
• Before ending a session, file the related fact cards behind the heading cards and bind them with an elastic band.  You can keep the whole project in a pocket instead of dragging books and other stuff around.
•  You will type out your findings, double-spaced, one side only using Times New Roman 12-point font with a cover page as demonstrated in the example in the Format Menu on this site, making sure of the correct course number and section designation. There should not be more than four (4) pages in this assignment all told, and they should be stapled together at the top left-hand corner with no other wrapping.
• Hints:  Did you check dictionaries if you have an unusual name or a non-English name?  Did you check the atlases if you think your name might come from a place name?  If it did, you should include the co-ordinates in degrees longitude and latitude of the place, particularly if your family originated there.  Check books and encyclopedias containing articles about the country or culture in which your origins lie.
• If there are religious connotations to your name, check scripture.  There are reference books called concordances which help you search for words in the Bible, for example.  Other scriptures may also have these reference books.
• If a famous person has borne your name, you need to include their dates and a bit about them.  This applies if you were named for a fictional character, too, but here you give the title of the book, poem, or song and the author; the date of publication/release would be helpful, too.
• Only after you have already searched all the above areas, should you ask for help from the reference librarian.  If you still come up empty-handed, you may have to go to a cultural centre or a university department specializing in the language or culture from which your name came. You may find these listed in the Yellow Pages of the telephone directory.
• Only as a final resort should you go to the Internet or to a member of the family.  If you do, you still have to make address cards for these sources.
• For a person, the card reads Personal Interview as a title, and you include the person's name, relationship to you or reason for their being considered an authority, and their full address and telephone number.
• As for electronic media, there is a special format which you must follow; a copy of it is the wall rack near the copy machines in the library.  See also the MLA handbook or web sites.
• Still not sure how to do this? Click on 'About Assignments' on the blue For Champlain Students page menu and look for  the card method for collecting information.

1.  Arrange your address cards in a pile according to alphabetical order of author/authority's last names and, using black writing in 12-point font (much smaller than this one) on white paper, without adding "arts and crafts" stuff, type up the list of references as per the Works Cited example.
2.  Type up the title page as per the green page sample.  The title is Brief Assignment:  My Name
3.  Stapled (top left) between these pages goes the two- or possibly three-page, double-spaced text.  It is formed of a paragraph for each topic with in-text citations after each fact (of course, in your own words) that are treated as a part of the sentence.  For example, My second name Barbara is Greek for foreigner (Dunkling and Gosling 123).

If several cards/authors say the same thing, choose the most complete one.  If there seems to be a disagreement, include the various opinions (with citations, of course.) Be aware of the problems of transliteration - there may not be any disagreement at all, in fact.

Integrate all information dealing with each separate aspect into a single section of the paper.

By the way, notice there is usually no comma in a citation, but if you have to distinguish between two books by the same author(s) then use the date of publication followed by a comma and then the page number, as in (Dunkling and Gosling 1983, 123) -- they are a prolific team.

In the Works Cited, we usually arrange them alphabetically according to title, as usual.  Remember in English, the words A or The are disregarded.  When there are many books by the same author or team, we only write the names once.  (In the next item, we use --------- .)  If in doubt about format, check the MLA book in its place among references in the library. Make a card for it, too, then.

4.  Style:  Do not editorialize; that is, do not comment in any way on what you have found out.  Be brief, clear and to the point.

The introductory sentence in all papers must begin  My name is ... .

5.  Before handing in any assignment, read it aloud to yourself/a friend and also, go over it with a lead pencil to make last minute corrections.  If you know you have problems with English, ask for help in editing from The Learning Centre or from a competent native speaker.

This research paper is due on time, in person and in your own section.  I may be checking your card work before then.

• About 100 people will be using the 'name books' which could get spread all around the library unless you remember to keep them near their shelf. (When you look in the catalogue under Subject, you can see how many there are supposed to be.) If they are not on their shelf, first check the tops of cabinets and so on.  They are not suposed to go farther than the first big table. If they are not in their area, you will have to look all around -- try the area near the encyclopedias and go around to all the tables looking for them.  Ask people with more than one, if you can look at the others while they 'process' one.
• Thinking about some of the reasons an ancestor may have been given a name can help.  See nicknames and epithets in the name authorities:
• One of the Hanks and Hodges has indices at the back about specialized names and also chapters on the 'theory' of naming and how we get our names.
• The Dunkling Guiness Book of Names has a bit of theory, too.
•  Does the name derive from a word to describe a personality characteristic?
• Example of a search: Don't jump to uneducated conclusions (and risk sounding like an inferior rapper or a certain Humanities teacher who was about to tell a student that:
  Gaudreault>gaudreau>goudreau>goudron until the Petit Robert [French dictionary] set her straight.  It has 'gaude' [13th-century usage] < a yellow tint, (cf. Eng. 'gaudy' bright) Hmmm, maybe.
But is there something more likely?  Hey, what about gaudriole?  I think we may have something ... .
• Is your name a variant or a diminutive of an older or longer form of a name?
• Is it an occupational name? ancient occupational titles
• There are several books by the same team of authors -- do not assume because the authors' names are the same that the book is the same one.
• Consult dictionaries of biography, atlases and books about the customs of the lands of your parents and ancestors, too.  See Italian names below for ideas about all kinds of names.

Web Searches:  Do you know the correct (MLA) way to cite a site?

General Information

About names and naming, Enc. Britannica on-line

Baby Name Network

Baby Names Directory  unfortunately sprinkled with errors

Behind the Name    several language/cultural traditions.  Use for hints, or just out of curiosity.

Cyndi's geneological links

Family Chronicle name meanings
    Origins  "Behind the Name"
    Also has Chinese surnames in alphabetical index.

Geneanet.org

Netscape's new page: gendirectory < Do not pay $. We are not looking for relatives, only meanings/origins.

Immigration stories: here the name and its spelling gets complicated by the French factor:  <  link is 404

BUT remember; this is not a geneology project in the true sense of that word.  We only want the meaning of a name.  However, if you think you know where your father's family came from, that might be useful in the search.

Kabalarians

Last Names.Netnationality list, surnames list and links to other name sites

Specific Information

African Names

Afro-american Naming traditions

Arabic naming tradition [see Muslim]

Arab names for men and for women in English transliteration.

Cambodian see Khmer

Chinese names:  We do have at least one library book.

• The 100 family names are at http://www.chinapage.com/100names.html
• 200 animated surname  characters
• Tsai's list of names
• http://www.yutopian.com/names/
• http://www.geocities.com/Tokyo/3919/
• Ron Young's Bai Jia Xing

Eastern European (Polish, Russian, Latvian ... .)

French and noms 'canadiens' (site about regions of France) 'D'ou vient votre nom?   http://www.jtosti.com/noms/l01.htm
from http://www.jtosti.com/indexnoms.htm
 

• Andre dit Fred

Hungarian

•     All about Magyar names
•     More Hungarian names

IndianAfrican and other baby name-links from Google

Indian first names, all religions

• Hindu nakshatra (astrological) names
• Kashmiri

Irish some of the clan names, transliterating ingenuity may be required

Italian names, and also geneology.  Other interesting information

Jewish names not just used by Jews. Besides Yiddish, there are Hebrew and Biblical names, Slavic, German etc.
Has good hints for decoding transliterations.

Khmer

Late Medieval names of several traditions including Jewish and Tamil

Miscellaneous:  Russian, Latvian and hundreds more including historical, place, etc.

Muslim (Arab, Persian, Turkish, etc.)

Persian and Iranian

Portuguese

Sikh

Slavic, Germanic, Armenian, Kyrgyz

Tibetan (incl. Sherpa)

Vietnamese names, see http://www.saigon.com/~nguyent/hoa_03.html Try to find the Huard & Durand, 1954 book which is the basis for that research.

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Part of the academic tradition is sharing knowledge.  If you are experiencing unusual problems, please raise your hand in class and share the experience; it may help others.  For example, when I help with a name like Walascic>Walachia >Walachs and also Valaha an Indo-European horse deity.  See also Bala and Balaha. see fellakh (Arab=peasant,) it may give other people some hints.

Please email khandro@videotron.ca, if you have found a good resource for any of the rarer kinds of names, or if a link is 404 < (cut and paste url and link, please.).

Good hunting !
 
 

black Khandro links

blue Office

green Assignments menu

Mythology explanations