Language Planning and Personal Naming in Lithuania

Abstract

This paper deals with the issues of language planning and naming in Lithuania since the restoration of independence in 1990. The aim of the paper is to analyse the challenges of corpus planning with the focus on the use and standardisation of personal names. The paper first presents the historical context of the formation of names in Lithuania and then discusses the influence of other languages on the formation and structure of personal names. Also surveyed in the paper is the work on standardisation and usage of proper names carried out by the State Commission of the Lithuanian Language, which is the key state institution responsible for language status and corpus planning and which takes decisions on standard Lithuanian usage. The paper then looks at the traditional model and the new alternative model of women's surnames and the way these models reflect marital status. Finally, regulations on the spelling of foreign names in different types of texts are given, followed by a short summary of research on attitudes towards foreign names.