I have from my publications selected one book and four articles I believe show an inherent theoretical and methodological consistency within the field of onomastics. The following are submitted: Mål og med, Målføre og médnamn frå Smøla, Tapir Akademisk Forlag, Trondheim 2000; ‘Sjønamn på medfjella’, in Namn of Nemne 15/1998 (:21-31); ‘Norse Topographical Names on the West Coast of Scotland’, in Scandinavia and Europe 800-1350 Contact, conflict and co-existence, ed. By J. Adams and K. Holman, Brepols, 2004 (:97-108); ‘Explorers, Raiders and Settlers. The Norse Impact on Hebridean Place-Names’, in Cultural Contacts in the North Atlantic Region: The Evidence of Names, ed. By P. Gammeltoft, C. Hough and D. Waugh, 2005 (:141-56), and ‘Scandinavian-American place-names as viewed from the Old World’, in Language Contact Across the Atlantic, ed. By I. Clarkson and S. Ureland, Tübingen, 1996 (:255-67). In addition I submit an essay ‘Fashion, Limitation and Nostalgia: Scandinavian Place-Names Abroad’, which discusses the underlying theory of the selected work. The book and articles argue the importance of considering the user-group when analysing patterns concerning distribution and time-span of productive use of classes of place-names. I have built on and extended theoretical ideas from Magnus Olsen, who was the first to show that our inventory of names is dependent upon the group(s) we function within, and from WHF Nicolaisen’s writings about our individual onomasticon.  In my book and articles it is shown how this is of importance within a fisherman’s milieu on the west coast of Norway, where highly specialised place-names are part of a very restricted and exclusive in-group language. Further, it is demonstrated that certain strata of Norse names in Scotland belong to time periods when the Norse arrived as explorers, while other names date to when the Norse came as settlers. Finally, this is exemplified with Scandinavian place-names from the relatively recent immigration to North America, where it is demonstrated that place-names fulfil a function as cultural signs within an immigrant group in need of identity markers.