Alan Rayburn

Alan Rayburn (15 November 193226 September 2019) was a Canadian writer and geographer who specialized in the study of toponymy.

Biography Rayburn was born on 15 November 1932. After earning a degree in geography, he joined the Geographical Branch of the Federal Department of Mines and Technical Survey in 1957, where he worked on the creation of a Canadian atlas. He was appointed as the first official toponymic researcher in Canada in 1967, and was among the charter members of the Ontario Geographic Names Board and the Toponymic Division of the Canadian Permanent Committee on Geographic Names.

Recognized as an authority on North American toponymy, Rayburn wrote over 100 articles and eight books across his career. He wrote extensively for Canadian Geographic, and published several scholarly works in Names: A Journal of Onomastics. Efn|A second edition of Geographical Names of Renfrew County was published in 1989 by Alan Rayburn Associates.