Dictionary of American Family Names, 2nd Edition

Dr. Patrick Hanks is a lexicographer, corpus linguist, and onomastician. For ten years (1990-2000) he was chief editor of current English Dictionaries at Oxford University Press. More recently, he has held research posts and taught linguistics and lexicology at undergraduate and postgraduate levels in Britain, America, and the Czech Republic. He is currently a visiting professor at the Research Institute of Information and Language Processing (RIILP, University of Wolverhampton, England). He is a frequent invited plenary speaker at international conferences on lexicography, corpus linguistics, figurative language, and onomastics.Simon Lenarčič is a lexicographer and self-educated onomastician and orthographer from Slovenia. He is the author or editor of several Slovenian encyclopedias, name dictionaries, and books on orthography.Dr Peter McClure is Honorary Professor of Name-Studies at the Institute for Name-Studies, University of Nottingham, England, and is the leading authority on English surname origins and the author of numerous articles on English names of all types. He was formerly Senior Lecturer in English Language and Literature, University of Hull, England (1965-90), specializing in Middle English and early Modern English. He was the founding editor of the onomastic journal Nomina (1977-85), is a past President of the Society for Name Studies in Britain and Ireland, and is currently Vice-President of the English Place-Name Society (since 2013) and onomastic consultant to the Oxford English Dictionary (since 2007).

• Preface to the Second EditionContributors and ConsultantsGeneral IntroductionIntroductions (to Surnames of Particular Languages and Cultures)A-Z

This dictionary is a tour de force because it represents the collaboration of a large number of academic scholars scattered across the globe, who have come together to produce an essential onomastic reference work that exemplifies a spirit of cooperation and team work that is quite difficult to achieve. Nevertheless, these scholars have banded together to produce a singularly excellent work. This dictionary will be a useful reference work for the general public, onomasticians, historians, genealogists, linguists, sociologists, and other scholars for a long time to come. The quality is remarkable. The second edition of the Dictionary of American Family Names belongs on the reference shelves of all major public and academic libraries and other related research institutions as an indispensable reference work.