Personal Names Research Articles

Biblical names in Ukraine: regional Aspects

This paper presents a study of the Biblical names in regional and historical aspects. Throughout history the Bible has served as the most important religious book for many people. As a result, the Bible has had a significant impact on various aspects of culture, education, and traditions. Ukraine has been characterized by the use of the Biblical names since the adoption of Christianity which influenced on the whole history of the state. Since Biblical personal names are both the lexical units and the symbols, it is interesting to see the presence of these names in different regions and epochs. The present study aims at pointing out at regional aspects of Biblical personal names. The paper provides a brief overview of naming trends in the assignment of Biblical names and Christian names in Ukraine. Our database of all names was fed the names of 2,000 people. The material is taken from the list of students who studied at Odesa State Agrarian University from 2014-2024 with the help of a continuous sampling method. The methodology, both statistical and qualitative, had two phases: a) comparison of the ratio of Biblical names to non-Biblical names, and b) classification of discovered Biblical names. This research is just one aspect of a series of investigations whose goal is to describe the anthroponomical system of Odesa, Ukraine in diachronic and synchronic format. The findings suggest that personal names with Biblical origin continue to be widely used in Ukraine. We emphasize that the study of anthroponyms in different regions and epochs is a valuable tool for understanding the history and cultural traditions of Ukraine. Therefore, the importance of onomastics as an interdisciplinary science affecting History, Sociology, Theology, Literature, and regional studies in the research of the Biblical names in current and past Ukraine is shown. This study draws upon three theoretical frameworks: anthroponomastics (Felecan & Mihali, 2023; Piddubna, 2021, etc.), socio-onomastics (Ainiala, 2016; Beley, 2019, etc.), and the regional onomastics (Braychenko, 2019; Buga, 2013; Chuchka, 1970; Frai, 2021; Matsyuk, 2021; Sholia, 2018, etc.).

Personal Names of 14-16th Century Armenian Lapidary Inscriptions (Region of Present-Day Ukraine)

The personal names in the lithographic inscriptions of the 14th-16th centuries there are some personal names, which in some cases are a novelty in our Armenian personal nomenclature system. Studing those, Acharyan's dictionary of personal names can be supplemented with not only numerical personal names (Khachum, Khatrshay, Malkhas, Nor Paron, Satat, Sarupeh, Aziz Khatun, Chihan, Pey Meliq, Sirakhatun, Tilshat), but also new phonetic versions of personal names (Raqel, Ulpek, Tagorshah), and new personal names (Ataka, Armushqah, Badiar, Yeaulik, Tulayd, Khachkarapet, Hundish, Merhider, Mikhno, Mutakh). The existence of new personal names also testifies to the literary Armenian that in the middle period of the development of the Armenian, the process of personal identification continued in the life of the Armenians of the colony, which is mentioned by the lithographic inscriptions. Referring only to the records of the region of present-day Ukraine, it’s noticeable that the local Armenians migrated mainly from Ani in the order of inheritance preserving their personal nomenclature system. Some of them (Sargis, Meliq, Petros, Ghazar, Grigor) were handed down from the ancient period of development of literary Armenian and are stil used nowdays, others (Asli, Babah, Badiar), present a new layer in the middle literary Armenian due to the influence of the foreign environment.

Breaking Boundaries: Unveiling the Sociolinguistic Tapestry of Lavender Language Among Homosexuals in Region XI

The study aimed to find out the phonological, morphological, and semantic variations of the Lavender language in the provinces of Region XI namely Davao del Norte (DDN), Davao Oriental (DOR), Davao Occidental (DOC), Davao del Sur (DDS) and Davao de Oro (DDO). The study utilized a qualitative research design employing textual analysis approach. Fifteen (15) research participants, consisting of homosexual teachers, took part in the study, selected through purposive and snowball sampling methods. The findings revealed variations in the Lavender language in the provinces of DDN, DOR, DOC, DDS, and DDO. Phonological variations included consonant clusters, phonemic changes, diphthongs, phoneme /ŋ/, and the use of accent marks on vowel phonemes. Morphological variations encompassed reduplication, coinage, and affixation, particularly prefixes, suffixes, and circumfixes. Semantic variations comprised words derived from the names of famous personalities, straight words, brands, food, places, and associated sounds. Overall, the results of the analyses shed light on how subgroups in society develop their own language to communicate with each other.

Contabilizar el comercio imperial: analysis of early double-entry accounting books with TEI/DEPCHA

Abstract This article discusses the encoding of double-entry accounting books from the 16th-century Spanish Empire and presents initial stage results from analyzing the encoded text, based on our case study. We selected the accounting books containing transactional data from 1558 to 1560. The encoding process followed the Text Encoding Initiative proposed by the Digital Edition Publishing Cooperatives for Historical Accounts (DEPCHA), with some additional attributes specific to the ontology of the double-entry books. The article explains the method of encoding and describes the unique characteristics of the ledger, such as the format of bookkeeping and the spatial arrangement of information. We adopted DEPCHA’s markup methodology to represent the accounting vocabulary and used the @ana attributes to invoke a domain ontology for bookkeeping structure of transactions. The results from the data analysis focus on three aspects: identification of person names, accounting terms, and checking the balance of payments. The study concludes by highlighting our contribution to expanding new semantic vocabularies within the DEPCHA’s Bookkeeping Ontology, namely “bk: Total” and “bk: SubTotal.” It illuminates the flexibility in name spelling and the preference for mundane vocabularies in the left column of the ledger, while emphasizing accuracy in numerical values and calculations in the right column. We propose further encoding and analysis of transactional records to enhance the understanding of historical double-entry commercial records.

Tshivenḓa death-related names as a communicative act: an ethnopragmatic study from Vhembe District in Limpopo province, South Africa

This article interrogates Tshivenḓa death-related names against the communication acts they encapsulate among Vhavenḓa society in the Vhembe District. Anthroponym scholars agree that personal naming moves from just identification to becoming a communication act. Like other African groups, the sampled society’s world view sees death as not occurring without the malevolence of supernatural forces through either a witch, dissatisfaction from ancestors, a neighbour, or a disaffected family member. This can be prevented through communication that serves as a warning, reprimand, praise, etc. Among the Vhavenḓa, this is achieved through a death-related personal naming process, which gives them the freedom to communicate controversies without confrontation. This study further demonstrates that this society sees personal names as useful towards creating different messages that communicate with those deemed culpable. Diviners are consulted about the cause of any death, irrespective of the circumstances and age of the deceased in the quest for closure among the surviving family members. Names in this category have different messages directed to suspected perpetrators, whether known or unknown. The article strives to add new knowledge to anthroponym studies.

Friesische Ortsnamen im Utrechter Güterverzeichnis aus dem 10. Jahrhundert

Abstract A well-known list of properties, owned by St. Martin’s church in Utrecht, dates from the early tenth century, although it has survived in younger copies. This source contains mainly place-names from the present-day Dutch provinces of North and South Holland and Utrecht. The coastal dialect there still had North Sea Germanic characteristics. Some of these characteristics seem to have been adapted by the Utrecht scribes, who used an Old Dutch dialect, probably because they recognized elements in the names. However, the personal names in the same source were less tampered with, in all likelihood because they are possibly less transparent and hence interesting to the scribes.

Douwa/Douwen/Douwens

Abstract In the Old West Frisian charters, weak personal names quite often feature the ending -en in both dative and accusative contexts. In this article, it is shown that the data do not indicate that this foreign (Middle Low German or Middle Dutch) case ending is intruding upon the original weak case ending -a in Late Old West Frisian. Therefore, the initial hypothesis is that -en might function as a kind of differential object marker, just like the ending -en with personal names in modern Mainland North Frisian. Since -en is limited to the formal, written language of the charters, however, one is drawn to the conclusion that the ending indeed serves the purpose of object marking, but purely as a notorial convention.

Registration of Personal Names as Trade Marks

Registration of Personal Names as Trade Marks

Socio-pragmatic Aspects of the Kurya Nicknames against First Names Given after Birth

This study investigated the socio-pragmatic aspects of nicknames in Kurya, a Bantu language spoken in northwestern Tanzania. The study was motivated by the fact that the available literature on personal names does not offer adequate information about what determines the selection of a Nicknames assigned to a person in the Kurya community and whether nicknames are semantically related to the personal names given after birth. The study employed a qualitative approach and a case study design. Its data were collected through interviews and critical documentary analysis whereby a total of six Kurya nicknames were obtained. The data were then analysed on the basis of Cognitive Semantics Theory and construal principles in particular. The findings indicated that Kidanga, Isokhero, Engoko, Iriraghiri, Esalighoko, Irongo, Bhulenya, Etena, Inchupa, Inchughu, Amaghuha, and Kerabhoko are Kurya nicknames whose assignment was influenced by behaviour, color, structure or articulation. It was noted that most of the Kurya nicknames do not have any symbiotic relationship with their bearers’ first names given after birth; the few which appear to be in a semantic relationship with first names come just by chance. Based on the findings, the study concludes that nicknames have a very important role in any community since they reflect the construal cognition of human nature and nurture. So, communities are advised to value their personal names even though nicknames have taken over. This is because personal names are our official identities and are the ones that are supposed to appear in official documents such as identity cards unless it is stated otherwise.

A STRATEGIC ANALYSIS OF THE RUSSIAN TRANSLATION OF CHARACTER EPITHETS IN THE NOVEL “A DREAM OF RED MANSIONS” BASED ON THE THEORY OF CONCEPTUAL METAPHOR

In the novel “A Dream of Red Mansions” the author Cao Xueqin connects the characters’ nicknames with the characters themselves and the themes of the work, forming the epithet metaphor. The translation of these metaphors has a far-reaching significance for cross-cultural communication. Thus, the object of our research includes the personal names and nicknames of the novel’s characters, with a special focus on their translation into Russian. The aim of the paper is to confirm or question the adequacy of the translation technique adopted by the translator in each particular case. Based on the conceptual metaphor theory, this paper sorts out some epithets in the 1958 Russian translation of “A Dream of Red Mansions,” explores the formation mechanism of epithet metaphor in the combination of literary and cultural contexts, and puts forward corresponding translation strategies for different interpretations of metaphor in different cultural contexts. The originality of research consists, first, in examining both personal names and nicknames and, second, in evaluating each technique employed by the translator in the light of both the linguo-cultural and text-centered approaches.

Cultural–Cognitive Study of Selected Death-Oriented Personal Names in Igbo

Working chiefly within the tenets of Cultural Linguistics (CL), this study examines the cultural and cognitive motivations that underlie selected death-oriented personal names among the Igbo of South-eastern Nigeria. Based on the cultural linguistic perspective, the analytical tool for the study is shaped by insights from cultural schemas, cultural categories and cultural metaphors as signifiers of ideation and social meaning. The cultural frames enable the language user to have a better understanding of the cultural and cognitive motivations that underlie the conceptualization of names and naming among the Igbo. Much has been done on the structure and sociological forms of Igbo personal names and their meanings, but only a few studies have been undertaken on the names that express the notions of death and dying in Igbo. More importantly, no previous study has used insights from Cultural Linguistics (CL) or the Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT) to explain the motivations for the preponderance of death-oriented names among the Igbo people. Thus, this study specifically aims to address the lacuna. The study reveals that the Igbo, like most African and other human societies, recognize and accept the inevitability of death. Consequently, they use language in diverse forms and contexts to express their perceptions of the horrors and pains associated with the inevitability of death. Songs, proverbs and ritual practices are some of the verbal and social semiotic forms through which the Igbo express their knowledge of and attitude toward death and dying. However, names and naming are the most vivid cultural cognitive patterns by which the Igbo show their understanding of the nature of death and dying and their psychological effects on the living. Constrained by space and scope, this study identified and classified six major death-oriented names among the Igbo, as follows: names that depict the overwhelming power of death; names that make an appeal to death; names that depict death as wicked/evil/terror; names that depict death as no respecter of wealth/social class; names that challenge/mock the assumed power of death; and names that depict death as an insensitive entity. Thus, the above frames constitute the major paradigms by which the Igbo express their knowledge of and attitudes toward death and dying.

The Church lexicon as a lexical category

The article focuses on the study of church lexicon as a lexical category. The aim of this article is to analyze and compare different linguistic points of view on the key stages of church lexicon development in the Russian and English languages, to determine a working definition of the category “church lexicon”, as well as its most important elements. In order to achieve this goal, the methods of analyzing sources, their subsequent comparison and contrast, identification of analogies and similarities were used, as well as synthesis of information extracted from these sources.The material includes dissertations, scientific articles and other works of modern Russian scholars considering the concepts “church lexicon” and “religious lexicon”, comparing and juxtaposing them, as well as singling out constituent elements of the categories “church lexicon”, “religious lexicon”, “sacral lexicon”, and “liturgical lexicon”. In this article are used the works of such scholars as A.A. Azarov, I.V. Bugaeva, S.V. Bulavina, N.S. Valgina, R.I. Goryushina, E.V. Kakorina, I.A. Koroleva, T.I. Kosheleva and others.The results of the research show that the interest in the church lexicon as a lexical category among Russian linguists has increased since the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries due to the revival of the Christian Church of various denominations, as well as other religious organizations. The long period of persecution of the Christian Church in Russia has affected church vocabulary, marginalizing it and relegating it to the periphery of the language. In the UK, USA and other English-speaking linguistic communities, the activities of the Christian Church have never been banned or persecuted, and the history of church vocabulary in the English language as such has never faced marginalization similar to that in Russia.It has also been established that church vocabulary is part of the broader category of “religious vocabulary” and includes basic concepts from the sphere of the life of the Christian Church. Although scholars argue about the constituents of the category “church lexicon”, many agree that it includes the names of sacraments and rites, elements of the church calendar, names of church buildings and their elements, items of decoration, elements of vestments, as well as names of persons in relation to the Christian faith and the Christian Church.This article may be of interest to philologists, linguists, and teachers of the Russian and English languages.

The Chukchi Influence on Chaplinski Yupik

Abstract Chaplinski Yupik (also often referred to as Siberian Yupik), a critically endangered Eskimo language spoken on the Bering coast in the north-eastern Siberia, shows numerous traces of language contact with Chukchi. A striking example is Chaplinski Yupik personal names, a significant part of which have Chukchi origin. In this study Chaplinski Yupik names are analyzed based on the genealogies of Chaplinski Yupik people compiled in 1970–1980s. The article focuses on phonological and grammatical adaptation of Chukchi names in Chaplinski Yupik. The case of personal names clearly reflects the history of Chukchi-Yupik language contact in the area – from an asymmetrical contact situation (the knowledge of Chukchi was common among Yupik speakers but not vice versa) and regarding Chukchi as a more prestigious language to a gradual loss of Chukchi-Yupik bilingualism by the end of the 20th century.

Introduction to the Special Issue of Genealogy on Surnames

Giving personal names to individual children is a cultural universal [...]

Facebook Usernames and Their Attendant Identity Construction: Voices from Ghana

Social networking sites (SNSs), such as Facebook, WhatsApp, Twitter (now, X) and Instagram, have now become an important part of communication in our world today. As a socio-technical system, SNSs have given users the opportunity to create, to expand, and to maintain new relations in a wider community; resulting in negotiation of varied identities in that social space. The present study, thus, aims at identifying the nature of Facebook usernames that are adopted by Ghanaian technical university students and to ascertain the kinds of identities enacted by such names. The Uses and Gratification Theory (UGT) was, essentially, adopted for the explanation of the rampant use of social media, and the intentions behind such use. An onomastic corpus of one hundred Facebook usernames was randomly and purposively sampled for the study and analyzed qualitatively. Personal names and nicknames emerged as common Facebook usernames. Concerning the kinds of identities that are projected, the local names were perceived to indicate an identity of patriotism to both ethnic groups and the nation as a whole. Nicknames were also observed to reveal a friendly platform for communication. The present study contributes to literature on naming practices, social networking sites and identity construction.

Building words from chemical elements: a fun and inclusive approach to introduce the periodic table

Abstract A program for writing words (or personal names) by combining chemical element symbols is developed in the context of classroom activity to introduce the periodic table, properties of elements, and periodic trends. We provide multiple examples and possible ideas to improve student engagement and create an inclusive environment in the classroom. Common confusions and mistakes made when learning the periodic table are tabulated and discussed. In addition to spelling words and creating graphics using element symbols, the program can display and print out properties of elements as part of the word-building game.

African elephants address one another with individually specific name-like calls.

Personal names are a universal feature of human language, yet few analogues exist in other species. While dolphins and parrots address conspecifics by imitating the calls of the addressee, human names are not imitations of the sounds typically made by the named individual. Labelling objects or individuals without relying on imitation of the sounds made by the referent radically expands the expressive power of language. Thus, if non-imitative name analogues were found in other species, this could have important implications for our understanding of language evolution. Here we present evidence that wild African elephants address one another with individually specific calls, probably without relying on imitation of the receiver. We used machine learning to demonstrate that the receiver of a call could be predicted from the call's acoustic structure, regardless of how similar the call was to the receiver's vocalizations. Moreover, elephants differentially responded to playbacks of calls originally addressed to them relative to calls addressed to a different individual. Our findings offer evidence for individual addressing of conspecifics in elephants. They further suggest that, unlike other non-human animals, elephants probably do not rely on imitation of the receiver's calls to address one another.

Gbari Personal Names: A Communicative Act and Rhetorical Features Analysis

Gbari Personal Names: A Communicative Act and Rhetorical Features Analysis

Optimizing Legal Protection: Addressing the Disparity of Sanctions Regarding Personal Names in Birth Certificates as Population Documents

Optimizing Legal Protection: Addressing the Disparity of Sanctions Regarding Personal Names in Birth Certificates as Population Documents

Translation Peculiarities of Religious Terminology in L.N.Tolstoy's Novel "Resurrection" into English

The subject of the study is L.N. Tolstoy's novel "Resurrection" and its translations into English. As part of this work, two English translations will be analized, one of them (“The Resurrection”) was made in 1899 by Louise Yakovlevna Mood and published by "Alice and Books". The second translation titled “The Awakening" was translated by William Smith and published in 1900 by "New York Street Publishing House". The subject of the study is to identify ways of interlanguage translation of religious terminology from Russian into English. The main focus of the work is on the lexical and semantic analysis of religious lexical units, as well as the analysis of types of translation transformations, of which the most frequent are the selection of equivalent correspondence, descriptive translation and transliteration. The work uses a comparative method that allows us to establish similarities and differences of lexical units in the text of the original novel "Resurrection" and its translations. By means of the contextual analysis method, the dependence of the meaning of these units on the context is analyzed. Using the continuous sampling method, religious terminology is selected and divided into thematic groups: "Names of the sacraments and lexemes associated with them", "Elements and forms of worship", "Elements of the church calendar", "Objects of worship", "Names of the Church hierarchy", "The Temple and its structure, parts", "Vestments of the clergy, their individual parts", "Prayers, texts of prayers and hymns and their components", "Names of church holidays", "Names of books of church content", "Names of ritual food" and "Names of persons of spiritual guarantors". The main difficulty in translation is the rather wide and diverse use of religious nominations, for which the translator needs to understand in detail the features and differences of religious terminology.