Keresztnévadási szokások Pornóapátin (1780–1980)

Absztrakt

Trends in naming infants in village Pornóapáti (1780–1980)

The study examines the changing fashions in choosing Christian names for infants in Pornóapáti, a village partly inhabited by people of German ancestry, from 1780, the date of the earliest village registers, to 1980. In the investigated period, 1740 males and 1600 females bore 95 and 113 Christian names, respectively. 137 males and 182 females got second Christian names in the period. Second Christian names, like third ones, were mainly given to female babies. Changes in the frequency of names demonstrate that although at the beginning of the period masculine Christian names display wider diversity, at the end of the period feminine names are the more varied ones. Regarding the motivation of naming one can observe that feminine names are less and less influenced by previous traditional name giving practices, whilst males get their father’s name more and more frequently in the period.