a socio-onomastic study of restaurants’ names in shiraz

Language and identity are intertwined in sociolinguistics’ science. in accordance with the prominence of names and their effect on social, cultural, psychological, and linguistic relations, this study intended to contribute an understanding to the way names of restaurants in shiraz are selected. the significant role of socio-onomastic concepts on language has been underestimated in literature up to date. this study examined the role of socio-onomastic factors (gender, ambiance, cultural association, national, international, and religious identities) in naming restaurants in shiraz. in order to obtain the results, the researcher applied frequency and chi-square for goodness of fit test. the results revealed significant differences between socio-onomastic factors and the naming of restaurants. accordingly, restaurants’ names reflected national identity as the most widespread feature in naming restaurants, the next prevalent feature dedicated to international identity followed by gender, ambiance, cultural association, and religious identities. hence, the results are discussed and compared with previous research in the field. it is implied that social and cultural perspectives in a country has significant roles in directing the tendency and attitude of people toward naming places. at last, it is hoped that the results of this study widen the perspectives of researchers toward more comprehensive outcomes in social domains integrated with the field of language and linguistics.