A reference work that can be read straight through as well. It covers recent developments in a field of study that almost nobody outside of it had heard of when I became interested 40 plus years ago, and discusses the intersection of onomastics with countless other fields, both linguistic and social science; also included is a survey of the literature up to this point. I was uninterested in the chapters on locomotive and airplane names, but the rest of it was fascinating. The bibliography is 95 pages long and much of it is now on my shopping list. . . .