The Oxford Handbook of Names and Naming

Reference librarians will be familiar with the extensive series of Oxford Handbooks, among which the sub-series devoted to linguistics now runs to thirty volumes. Like the others, this one aims to provide a summary of the state of knowledge in its subject (the volume now reviewed being the paperback edition of a hardback original published in 2016). It is claimed to be suitable for the general reader as well as the specialist, though I did feel that this claim appears over-optimistic in some cases.

The book is the work of 43 contributors, of whom more than a third are...