Oikonymy of the Livvik Karelians

Abstract

The article investigates the settlement names in Southern (Olonets) Karelia, where the Livvik dialect of the Karelian language has been spoken for centuries. The study highlights that, in the early stages of settlement by Livvik Karelians, the development of villages was shaped by the region’s physical geography and the population’s way of life. Due to the abundance of lakes and rivers in Southern Karelia, early villages were mostly established along these water bodies. However, from the 18th century onwards, settlements began to develop on higher ground, leading to the formation of “settlement” type villages. The article focuses on the types of rural settlements and the structure of their names. The most common single-component names include oikonyms with the -l formant, typically derived from personal names. Less common are deanthroponymic patterns without a formant, and those with the formants -(i)ne, -sto, or the Russian -ovo and -shchina. Among other oikonyms, those based on geographical terms such as pogostu ‘village with a church,’ kylä and hieru ‘village’ are particularly prevalent. The study also identifies terms for smaller settlements and farmsteads, such as kodi, kondu, perti, and taloi, along with terms borrowed from Russian, like myza and khutor. The author examines why certain types of oikonyms are more common, the timeline of their adoption into the local toponymy, and the inclusion of reconstructed terms like moiživo and tula, which likely referred to small homesteads. The author concludes that the formation of the settlement system in Southern Karelia peaked in the early 20th century but began to decline with collectivisation and subsequent repressions, leading to the abandonment of many villages in the 1960s and 1970s.