1. Name through centuries and counties

It is believed that a person needs a name for identifying and distinguishing himself from others. How many Carls were on all thrones of West Europe? There were 15 ones only in Sweden! Carl the Great’s power turned this name into a Slavic common noun korol (king). And what about innumerable Lui in France, Fridrichs in Germany, etcetera? After victories of Henry I the name Henry was overspread among German and neighbor states ruling dynasties. Having studied Turkmen’s names in the XI-XVIII centuries Z.B.Mukhmedova noted :”According to our data there is a social border between ordinary people’s names and khan’s names. Latter usually bear names of predatory animals and birds, which used to be totems: it is very seldom when their names arise from such natural phenomena as rain or desert bush. Makhmud Kasgarsky noticed it in the XI century .In ancient times names derived from God Apollo’s name in Thrace and Egypt belonged to aristocrats.Names are social in the history of each country. Princes ’seignorial surnames appeared in Russia from XIV till the middle of the XVI century, landowners’ given names formed in the XIV-XVII centuries: town people’s surnames, except eminent merchant class had not been finally established even in the XIX century, the overwhelming majority of serfs did not have surnames till the middle of the XIX century.

Structure of surnames differed socially. Princes’ surnames formed from church names were rare among princes’ ones but they were very often formed from nicknames, there were no surnames come into being from nomina agentis (“according to professions”) , which were very popular among merchant given names.The latter differs from serfs with high percentage of toponymic stems (a place where and how a merchant came). Analogycal social features of surnames were marked by researchers in different countries, for example in France and Hungary.Even forms of names are social. In ancient Russia frequently used in the XI-XII centuries compound personal names ending on –slav ( Svyatoslav, Yaroslav, Mstislav) were called princes’names. Indeed only feudal lords bore these names. It is known that Moscow boyars struggled with tsar for the right to be signed with -vich , i.e. with full patronymic name, for example, Ivan Fedorovich (not Ivan Fedor’s son ). The right of bearing –vich was strictly limited by the law through these limits changed during several centuries with the change of the main social support of the power.In Poland shlyakhta was furiously reflecting the attempts of unauthorized arrogating of shlyakhta surnames ending on –ski (though there was no written rights on families). Byk became Bykowsky , Badura – Badurski. Service elements which formed surnames from the name of the estate became the attribute of the nobility in France and Germany (French de, German von ).

Strict social gradation of names was typical for all documents in the Russian state. The form of a personal name was determined by the place on a ladder of social hierarchy.For ordinary people the pejorative form of name was obligatory in the XIX century. V.G.Belinsky wrote with anger and pain “The letter to Gogol” :”Russia represents an awful performance of the country where people call themselves by their nicknames but not by their own names, for instance, Vanka, Vaska, Steshka, Palashka.Having named the heroine of the novel “ Resurrection” Katyusha, L.N.Tolstoy with remarkable sensitivity expressed social opposition of forms of personal names. “Under two influences the girl when she grew up became half-housemaid, half-pupil. So she was called by her middle name – not Katka and not Katenka, but Katyusha. “ Nowadays these distinctions have no social value, and express only an emotional estimation, but it was absolutely different in the past.

The social pyramid of names in Iran on the boundary of 30 th of the XX century is similar and its description shows, that “this scheme answers complex feudal hierarchy of the Persian society which to a great extent survived up to nowadays”.

The personal name contained the second component in Sanskrit depending on what caste the bearer of a name belonged to. Brakhmans had –s’ arman ‘favour’or –deva god’ indra-s’arman’ Indra’s favour Jagd-devaa ‘the god of victory’), kshatrity privilieged caste had-varman ‘armour’ or armour or-raja ‘ruler,prince’, in a caste of merchants –datta ‘gifted’, and –bhuti “success”, at last the lowest caste had the component –dasa’slave’.

Interesting data of the Chinese anthroponomy in German scientist V.Bauer’s work which is devoted to personal names in modern Taiwan allow to establish such correlation, which explains distinction of two-stemmed (Van-fu, Yu-lan) and one-stemmed (Ching, Mei) names as a social distinction of bearers.

Among people with high education 96 % have two-stemmed names, with secondary 88 %, with elementary education 58 %, without any education-57 %: the reason is contained in the distinctions of material security.

In a society with conventionalized classes, names are also conventionalized. Certainly , the class differentiation of names does not mean, that social attributes inherent in the name. Their certain social character developed historically. It is impossible to understand it as the firm list of names set to each estate. Connection is more difficult and thinner, just as estates did not correspond to classes.

Personal name is the password designating the bearer’s belonging to definite public circle. It explains the existence of parallel systems of personal names, even if there is one official, obligatory for all. Such parallel systems are everywhere diverse. In fact any member of a society belongs to many crossed societies: as a citizen , he has three names: a surname, a name, a patronymic, but he can be a writer or an actor by profession and have pseudonym, besides he is a family man and his wife or children call him not by surname, name and patronymic, he also has home name, former school friends call him by his school nickname, etc.

If various sides of relations of a person to a society are not simultaneous (a factory manager, at the same time he is father , someone’s comrade of school years), and vary during his life, these changes may be accompanied even by a full change of a personal name.

Ancient Turks had only age names:”Turks did not carry the same names from birth to death, as Europeans did”. Many peoples living far from each other have age names. Young men of the Negro tribe mosi in the Western Africa live separately, preparing to maturity: for this period they receive special names and only they and their instructors know these names : later, after becoming adults, they can call each other by these names, but never at the presence of others. Tadjics in the upper reachers of the Pyanja do not pronounce the name given to a child at a birth till his coming of age, and use temporary name.There are special age names which are parallel to the main, obligatory ones as a children’s name, a school name in China. In Japan a child carried “a dairy name” till he attained his maturity then he received a name of an adult member of a society. In Korea a boy was given “a children’s name” at a birth, so called amen: having reached his maturity, he changed this name on kvanmem which is an official name, then at a marriage the name chja joined, and acting on public service or beginning activity in literature and art, in addition received also khho.