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On November 16-18 2006 a symposium on place-names and personal names in multilin­gual and multi-cultural environments was arranged at Umeå University.  The symposium was implemented by order of Nordiska kommittén för namnforskning ['The Nordic coopera­tive committee for onomastic research'] (NORNA). About forty researchers from Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Finland had accepted the invitation and participated in three days of interesting discussions.

The fourteen lectures of the symposium, eleven of which are published here, elucidate a number of aspects concerning names in multilingual and multi-cultural environments. There are many perspectives, and thus the theoretical and methodological approaches vary-there are several theoretical aspects illustrated here besides the purely pragmatic ones. Both place-names and personal names are focused on, as well as empirical aspects of both early and late periods. In addition, Nordic conditions and similar conditions in other parts of the world are dealt with, something that adds valuable comparative dimensions.