Women of the Bratslav region of the second half of the 16th century and the first decade of the 17th century from the angle of anthroponymy

Abstract

This article analyses the specific nature of nominations of women in official documents of the Bratslav Voivodship in the period 1566–1606. The authors attach a particular attention to extralinguistic factors that are required for the correct interpretation of using various means of anthroponymic identification of women in the analysed texts. A comparison to the results of the Ukrainian, Polish, and Belarusian onomastics provides grounds for the ascertainment of the popularity of the female name Anna and the popularisation of the name Maria in the Polish‑Lithuanian Commonwealth under the Ukrainian influence. Like in the neighbouring Polish lands, is the bi-lexical (through the first name and surname) method of anthroponymic identification of women prevalent in the Bratslav region’s documents.