Karelian Anthroponymic Heritage in Russian Zaonezhye

Abstract

This article analyses non-calendar Karelian anthroponyms identified in archival documents from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries on the Zaonezhye Peninsula and testifying to the Karelian heritage of this marker for the culture of the Russian North. The analysis draws upon materials of written books, as well as sources of Zaonezhye Volost self-government, which rarely come to the attention of philologists. The sources were compiled on the site with the support of information from residents, consequently, in them, more often than in written books, there are names that used to be found in the national environment. Among them, there are so-called family patronymics and nicknames. At the same time, in accordance with the universal pattern characteristic of nicknames, they reflect the negative characteristics of a person, i.e. laziness, silliness, talkativeness, etc. Many new etymologies of Karelian non-calendar anthroponyms are proposed in the analysis. For etymology, the author extensively uses data of modern Karelian anthroponyms. The value of this anthroponymy is that it significantly expands the fragmentary knowledge of traditional Karelian nouns, especially existing outside Ladoga Karelia. Additionally, it contributes to the reconstruction of the Karelian page in the history of Zaonezhye, as it contains the names of the Karelians who lived there. For the history of the Karelian language, it is significant that in the situation of almost complete absence of Karelian writing dating back to the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, this material contains some features of the language of that time, albeit blurred by Russian adaptation. Some structural markers for distinguishing Finnic anthroponyms by their roots are also proposed.