If they write “perhaps” and name a language family, they are your people.
People
- Patrick Hanks 1940–2024 · United Kingdom — Name dictionaries
The default English-language onomastic lexicographer.
- Eilert Ekwall 1877–1964 · Sweden / UK — English place-names
A model of toponymic etymology (cousin field).
- Wilhelm von Humboldt 1767–1835 · Prussia — Language and names
Historical, easy to over-read; part of the intellectual ancestry.
- Korean hanja lexicographers 20th c.– · Korea — Character senses
Describe 돌림자 and hanja as language, not as fate.
- Chinese generation-poem historians various · China — Kin design
The right context for “meaning” in many given names.
- Stanley Lieberson 1933–2018 · United States — Meaning’s small motor
Fashion usually is not driven by the dictionary gloss.
A trustworthy meaning voice sounds slightly disappointed. Certainty is the tell.