On people after whom old settlements of Hungary were named

Abstract

On people after whom old settlements of Hungary were named    

The present study examines the name-sociology of place-names and generic words with localizing functions preserved in the written records of the Early Old Hungarian period. The starting-point of the discussion is that many of these language items can be observed as language imprints of the charter drafters, and the rest of the names do not describe the language situation of the local population equally well either. The linguistic characteristics of the names allow us to judge about the time of occurrence and cast light only rarely on the time of birth. Etymology can bind most names to a language; this fact, however, gives no opportunity to draw direct conclusions about the ethnic group. It appears that there is an important difference between natural names (names of bodies of water, micronames) and names of human establishments (e.g. settlements) with respect to the situation of naming. Regarding the former ones, the act of naming can less be blamed on a given person, and the users of these names could be fewer. The changeability of settlement-names, the frequency of settlements with more than one name, the references of the historical sources emphasize the presence of greater consciousness on the part of the namers, still even different types of settlement-names can display different name-sociology.