Erisnimien

Erisnimien is a neologism used in discussions of onomastics and digital identity to describe a class of names that exist in multiple variants across languages, scripts, or social contexts. The term is not widely established in standard linguistic nomenclature, and its precise definition varies among scholars and enthusiasts who use it.

In its broad sense, erisnimien encompasses transliterations, diacritic variants, stage or pen names, nicknames used in different communities, and legally changed forms that retain a core base name. The concept highlights how identity is anchored in names while remaining fluid across contexts, making disambiguation and data integration more complex.

Examples include a person whose name appears as "Alexei" in one source, "Alexey" in another, and "Alexander" in official documents; or a writer who publishes under "Mikaela" in one language and "Michaela" in another. Company or place names may likewise appear in multiple forms, such as diacritic-saturated variants, transliterations, or anglicized spellings.

Scholarly attention to erisnimien is limited. It is most often encountered in online discussions, data science conversations about entity resolution, and niche onomastics writings. Critics caution that the term lacks a single, authoritative definition and can be used variably, which reduces its utility in formal taxonomy.

See also: Onomastics, name variant, alias, pseudonym, transliteration, entity resolution.