People’s Names: A Cross‐cultural Reference Guide to the Proper Use of over 40,000 Personal and Familial Names in over 100 Cultures

The subtitle partly explains the purpose of this compilation, which is principally designed to help writers avoid solecisms when bringing characters from unfamiliar cultures into their fictions. It could be used as a guide to etiquette in real‐life situations as well, but is probably not the sort of thing you would want to lug around to cocktail parties on the diplomatic circuit. In her introduction the author goes into some detail about the various kinds of name (her terminology is a bit unorthodox), and offers useful advice about euphony, avoiding too much alliteration and rhythmic repetition, about taking care in...