DFD department head Dr Rita Heuser honoured with the Henning Kaufmann Prize

For her achievements in the field of name research, Dr Rita Heuser, department head of the academy project 'Das Digitale Familiennamenwörterbuch Deutschlands (DFD)' (The Digital Dictionary of German Family Names), received this year's annual award from the Henning Kaufmann Foundation for the Promotion of German Name Research on a Linguistic-Historical Basis. The award ceremony and keynote speech took place on 29 September 2025 at the Academy of Sciences and Literature in Mainz.

The Henning Kaufmann Prize is endowed with €3,000 and is awarded by the Henning Kaufmann Foundation. It serves to promote German name research in linguistics and honours outstanding name researchers.

The award ceremony took place as part of the 10th Mainz Name Conference 'Migration Onomastics: Personal Names in the Context of Migration Movements' (29 and 30 September). The aim of the conference was to examine personal names in connection with linguistic biographies and migration processes. The event took up the results and research perspectives of the international workshop 'Personal Names in Migration,' which took place at the University of Münster in 2023. The aim was to examine in particular grammatical adaptation processes, transliteration, situational-pragmatic variation, and changes in first names, family names, and full names.

Further information on the conference can be found here.