8. Identification of names

One of the branches that consider name as a concept is onomastics. Onomastics is a set of names surrounding us in any sphere of life and activity. Sometimes it is replaced with the term onymy.

Onymy as any lexicon vividly reacts to all the phenomena happening in the environment surrounding the person, as a result names appear involuntary registarts of natural phenomena and the events which take place in the public life.

We shall consider how the separate factors connetcted with the life and activity of the person are reflected in onomasticon.

Name and geographical environment.Among proper names of any language, especially among anthroponyms, there will be many words including lexemes, denoting features of a landscape, the atmospheric phenomena, et cetera. For instance from Russian nicknames as Grom (thunder), Moroz (frost), Ozero (lake) appear surnames as Gromov, Morozov. Ozerov and the noted Indian-American names sachem are Fine lake, the Glade in a wood, a name of the North American leader is Frost, a patrimonial name of the tribe omakha is Thunder.

Name and biological factors. Lexemes which designate phenomena, describing biological human nature, took and take a significant place in the onomasticon. Especially it affected the structure of anthroponyms which in informal situations reflect various biological characteristics of the person (Lame, Bandy-legged, Fingerless, et cetera). Such kind of names was much more in the antiquity. Names reflecting biological characteristics of a person existed and exist at all nations. However, their percentage ratio with the names of other types during the different periods of life of human society was different. But the fact of appealing to the biological characteristics of the person at the creation of names is one of the onomastic universals.

Name and public life. Names of each epoch have sociological and ideological filling adequate to the cultural specificity of the epoch. Lexemes in the structure of names can serve as a vivid illustration of the connection between name and the life of human society.

So, for example, in 1789 metropolitan Platon founded five grants at Academy of Spiritual Studies in Moscow. Students, whose studies were paid by Platon, accepted Platon’s surname which, then, passed to their descendants. Many graduates of the Moscow Academy of Spiritual Studies in consequence had double surnames: Gilyarev-Platonov, Gorsky-Platonov, Kudryavtsev-Platonov, Pobedensky-Platonov. The grant-holder had to take the surname Mikhailov. The patrons of art who wished to keep the memory about themselves and their name quite often established on their own money educational institutions which were to be called after their names.

History knows the ruined names which are gone out of use at the significant social groups as a result of moral conviction of their bearer’s acts. So, in England after Cromwell’s coming to power his name Oliver was not popular within hundred years; after German capture of Austria by Hilter his name Adolf was given to nobody in Vein during more than 20 years.

Names as a part of lexicon vividly reacting to public changes are extremely subject to influence of fashion. As the name is the subject of spiritual culture, the fashion on names is close to the fashions on literary works or pictures created in certain style, and radically differs from the fashion on dresses or canes which are the subjects of material use. Fashions on names are explained by the complex interaction between linguistic and non-linguistic factors influencing on the choice of names. Incidentally only linguistic and non-linguistic “push” is usually insufficient ly for the origin or discontinuance of the fashion. All set of factors is important.