This collection of essays was the first published in North America that sought to describe the methodology and some results of a scholarly enterprise hailed in the preface to the volume as "one of the most vibrant, innovative, and productive movements in medieval scholarship at the present time."

Under the direction of Monique Bourin an international team of scholars has been considering onomastics from the perspective of history rather than that of linguistics or philology. By examining data on both the micro and macro levels, researchers are beginning to describe how medieval patterns of naming have implications for our understanding of family relationships, kinship, and larger social structures that were not fully realized by earlier scholars.