"scientific study of names and naming," by 1930, from onomastic; also see -ics.
Entries linking to onomastics
onomastic adj.
"of, pertaining to, or consisting of a name," 1716, from French onomastique (17c.), from Greek onomastikos "of or belonging to naming," from onomastos "named," verbal adjective of onomazein "to name," from onoma "name" (from PIE root *no-men- "name").
-ics
in the names of sciences or disciplines (acoustics, aerobics, economics, etc.), a 16c. revival of the classical custom of using the neuter plural of adjectives with Greek -ikos "pertaining to" (see -ic) to mean "matters relevant to" and also as the titles of treatises about them. Subject matters that acquired their English names before c. 1500, however, tend to be singular in form (arithmetic, logic, magic, music, rhetoric). The grammatical number of words in -ics (mathematics is/mathematics are) is a confused question.