Origins and meanings of Bashkir names

Modern masculine and feminine Bashkir names are of great variety. This is the result of active influence of foreign name giving traditions. The Bashkir people were constantly under the influence of other nations. Consequently, a lot of personal names were borrowed from other languages of pre-Muslim and Muslim historical periods: Arabian, Turkic, English, German, Latin and even Russian. A lot of Bashkir names are in use nowadays.

Speaking about popular Bashkir names and their meanings, one important fact should be noted. The local system of name giving formed under the influence of Islam. On this account most Bashkir names have a religious meaning. There are also names the meaning of which is connected with different animals and plants. Most of them had been adopted from the old-Turkic language.

Special attention is drawn to modern Bashkir feminine names meaning different luminaries. They are derived from the word ‘ai/ay’ that means ‘Moon’ (Aygul, Aybika, Aynur, Aygiz), ‘kon’ – ‘Sun’ (Konyabika) and ‘tan’ – ‘dawn’ (Tansylu, Tansulpan). Some feminine names have the following parts “gol/gul” – “flower” (Aygul, Gulnara, Nazgul, etc.), “guzel” – “beautiful” (Guzel), “yul” – ‘road” (Akyul, Yulbika, Yuldashbay), “ish” – ‘pair’. There are also a lot of feminine names with the ending “khylu”, which means “beautiful” (for example, Aykhylu, Akhylu, Tankhylu, Konkhylu, Mayankhylu, Barsynkhylu), “bika”, which means “mistress” (Yanbika, Bulyakbika, Aybika, Buranbika). Girls were often given the names of precious stones, flowers (Narkas, Nargiz “Narcissus”) and some traits. This custom was adopted from the Arabs and Persians.

As for Bashkir masculine names, most of them bear the meaning of truly male traits of character, such as courage, strength, reliability, capability, purposefulness and others.

Like most nations the Bashkirs named their children according to their physical and moral peculiarities, different circumstances of their lives, parents’ mood and attitude towards the newborn. Given names most often derive from the following categories:

• Numerical names representing birth order in a family: Saniya (Сания) - "second", which was traditionally given to the second female child, Kiniya (Кинья) – “the last’, which was traditionally given to the last child in the family.

• Aspiring personal traits (external and internal). For example, Sabir (Сабир) "patience", Omat (Омэт) "hope", Tudem (Тудем) "patience", Sibak “weak”, Bazyk “strong”, Sulak “armless”, Karabash “black head”, Erenbash “red head”, Khorokuzle “yellow eyes”. There are a lot of “colour” names, for example, Akbulat (ak – “white”), Akbure, Kukbure (kuk – “blue”), Altynsa (altyn – “golden).

• Circumstances of birth connected with natural phenomena or events, for example, Yamgyr (Ямгыр) "rain", Bolot (Болот) "cloud", Buran (Буран) “snow storm”, Aya (Ая) "a clear day", Karyaue (Каръяуэы) "it had been snowing", Karyau (Каръяу) "Snow, fall!", Kaskyn (Каскын) "runaway”, Yaugilde (Яугилде) "invasion came", etc.

• Animal and plant-related names: Telkebay (Телкебай) ‘rich in foxes’, Kubelek (Кубэлэк) – ‘butterfly”, Aryslan (Арслан, Арыслан) – “lion”, Burebay (Буребай) “rich in wolves”, Emeshbika – “mistress of fruit”, Almabika – “mistress of apples”.