Âèêîíàëà:
Ñòóäåíòêà V êóðñó
×åðí³âåöüêîãî íàö³îíàëüíîãî
óí³âåðñèòåòó ³ì. Þ.Ôåäüêîâè÷à
Øåéêà Íàòàë³ÿ
Ethnocultural
characteristics of personal names
The history of names is so ancient that no one knows
the beginning of the story. Since written history began, and as far back as
oral history reaches, people have had names. It is therefore impossible to do
more than guess at how the earliest given names were chosen. Most names appear
to have had some sort of original meaning, usually descriptive, rather than
being simply a pleasing collection of sounds.
Early in prehistory some descriptive names began to be used again and
again until they formed a name pool for that particular culture. Parents would
choose names from the pool of existing names rather than invent new ones for
their children. As time went on the language changed and in many cases the
words that formed the original name passed out of use, leaving the fossilized
form in the name. This is why we do not recognize the meanings of many names
today. Their origins are in ancient languages from words that have passed out
of use. For instance, the name Edwin was originally composed of the Old English
words ead, which means "prosperity, fortune, riches" and wine, which
means "friend." Both of these words have passed out of the language
in the intervening thousand or so years.
With the rise of Christianity, certain trends in naming practices
manifested. Christians were encouraged to name their children after saints and
martyrs of the church. The oldest of these names were Jewish and GrecoRoman
names. The names of the apostles and other prominent early Christians mentioned
in the New Testament were often Jewish, such as Mary, Martha, Matthew, James,
Joseph and John. The early Christians lived in the
Surnames developed from bynames, which are additional identifiers used
to distinguish two people with the same given name. These bynames tend to fall
into particular patterns. These usually started out as specific to a person and
became inherited from father to son between the twelfth and sixteenth century.
The aristocracy usually adopted inherited surnames early on and the peasants
did so later. Some of the specific types are: the patronymic (referring to the
father or mother), a locative or toponymic (indicating where a person is from),
an epithet (which describes a person in some way) or a name derived from
occupation, office or status. Most cultures use surnames developed from one or
more of these types of bynames.
Patronymics are common in almost all European cultures. These are
usually formations that mean "x son of y" or "x daughter of
y". The parent indicated is usually the father, but the mother's name may
also occur in some cases. Patronymics were formed in various ways in English;
Johnson, Richards and Henry are representative. Johnson shows the full
development; it obviously means son of John or John's son. The "son"
could also be understood, by the position in the name, so Richard's son Martin
might be called Martin Richards instead of Martin Richardson. At the same time,
Henry's son Martin might be known as Martin Henry, because to the medieval mind
the position of the name Henry would imply that Martin was Henry's son. Other
cultures used different ways of indicating patronymics. In Welsh, the usual
form was ap X. If the father's name (X) was Rhys, it would form ap Rhys. Over
the centuries this form yielded the names Reese and Price. In
Epithets are bynames that refer to some personal
characteristic of the bearer. An appellation of this sort can be complimentary,
uncomplimentary or simply descriptive. The truth is
that names are a part of every culture and that they are of enormous importance
both to the people who receive names and to the societies that given them.
Despite their universality, there is a great deal of difference from one
culture to another in how names are given. Among most preliterate peoples,
names are determined according to very definite and specific rules. Generally,
in cultures with a keen sense of ancestry, children get their names from the
totems and family trees of their parents. In some cultures, names are taken
from events which happen during the pregnancy of the mother or shortly after
the birth of the child, and in others, names are divined through magic and
incantation. In some cases, the name given at birth is only the first of
several names a person will bear throughout life. When this happens, the new
names are given either to mark important milestones in life or to ward off evil
spirits by tricking them into thinking that the person with the old name has
disappeared. Through the name, the individual becomes part of the history of
the society, and, because of the name, his or her deeds will exist separate
from the deeds of others.
The sense of personal identity and uniqueness that a name gives us is at
the heart of why names interest us and why they are important to us as
individuals and to our society as a whole. In spite of their importance,
though, most people know very little about names and about the effects they
have on us an on our children in everyday life. In a very real sense, we are
consumers of names, and we have a need and right to know about the
psychological, magical, legal, religious, and ethnic aspects of our names.
Bibliography:
1.
Feldman, Harold. "The Problem of Personal Names
as a Universal Element in
Culture." American Imago 16 (1959).
2.
Withycombe E.G. The
3. Ùåòèíèí Ë.Ì. Èìåíà è íàçâàíèÿ. Ðîñòîâ í/Ä. Èçä-âî Ðîñòîâ. óí-òà, 1968. – 215 ñ.