This study is focused on scholarship on proper names within a sociolinguistic framework. The main aim of this study is to clarify the term socio-onomastics and its meaning and usage with regards to toponomastics. Special attention is paid to the genesis of socio-onomastics and to the relations between sociolinguistics, onomastics and socio-onomastics. The influence of social aspects on the act of naming and on the entire existence of names is also taken into consideration when discussing the use of socio-onomastics. The text discusses views and attitudes towards the topic presented in linguistic literature. The socio-onomastic aspects are predominantly studied in scholarship on personal names, e.g. name creation and choice. In the case of place names, they are studied more rarely and the research pays attention mostly to the usage of place names in communication. Available toponomastic and anthroponomastic works using the term socio-onomastics in their description have been analyzed, as well as theoretical onomastic literature, producing several findings of differences in the usage of this term. The main topics of socio-antroponomastic literature are anthroponymy of various social groups, social aspects of name choice, social aspects of the development of naming systems, popularity of names, nicknames, hypocorisms and slang naming. The socio-toponomastic works mainly deal with the toponymy of various social groups, toponymic competence (knowledge and usage of toponyms), non-standardized toponyms, slang toponyms, social-based toponyms (commemorative toponyms), social-based renaming, and the linguistic landscape.

The subject of the article are personal names of the Ukrainian population living in the former Chełm land, presented within the context of historical and cultural and religious conditions, as determinants of national identity. Language, in addition to tradition, a sense of religious, historical and territorial community and national consciousness, being one of its basic elements. Shown is the relationship between certain types of anthroponyms and their linguistic structure together with their ethnic and social origin and, to some extent, the system of values professed. Attention has also been paid to the phenomenon of the infiltration of Polish features present in the anthroponymy of the inhabitants of the area in question.

In the modern corpus of Croatian anthroponyms there are 30 personal names with the root bog (‛god’). An abundance of both published and unpublished historical sources used in this research allowed the authors to create a corpus of personal names suitable for the comparative analysis of frequency and incidence in historical sources. The continuity of the use of the root bog among Croats is presented through the analysis of historical anthroponymic records (from the oldest originating in the 11th century, to contemporary sources). The oldest available sources attest to the onset of interference and the blending of Slavic and Romanic ethnicities, foremost in coastal Dalmatian city communes. A limited frequency of these personal names was detected in the 16th century. The factors that led to this situation are not only connected to the decisions of the Council of Trent, which recommended general usage of Christian names, but can also be attributed to historical circumstances (incursion of Ottomans, subsequent migrations). Most of the 16th century attestations pertain to areas with a mixed Christian and Muslim population. In border areas, where Western states shared Eastern borders with the Ottoman Empire, the analysed attestations were quite rare. Due to constant migrations from the contact zones and the Ottoman Empire towards the interior of the Hungarian-Croatian Kingdom, these personal names were able to ”survive” the early modern period. At the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century, usage of folk names was more frequent, most probably as a consequence of the process of Croatian national revival.

In the Middle Ages, several name-formation processes played a role in the creation of the anthroponyms in Hungarian. The main name-formation mechanisms were:

1. Semantic name-formation. Within this mechanism, the anthroponym develops through the use of internal elements of the language in such a way that the anthroponymic meaning is created without any change in morphological structure. In Old Hungarian naming practices, the most frequent types of semantic name-formation were:

a. metaphoric name-giving (e.g. farkas ʽfarkas’ [wolf] > anthroponym Farkas),

b. metonymic name-giving (e.g. when an “instrument” of a profession becomes the name of the person practising the given profession; ökör ʽökör’ [ox] > anthroponym Ökör as the name of a butcher),

c. semantic split: e.g. ethnonyms, names of professions, etc., often become anthroponyms without the use of any morphological tool (kovács ʽkovács’ [smith] > anthroponym Kovács).

2. Morphematic construction. In the Old Hungarian period, several suffixes contributed to the creation of anthroponyms, among which the most common ones were: -d(i) ~ -t(i), -s, -a/-e etc. This morphological solution was the most important tool for adapting foreign names in the Middle Ages: Petrus in Latin > Petr-i, Pet-e, Pet-i, Pet-es in Hungarian.

3. Syntagmatic construction. This process, through the combination of two existing lexemes, creates an anthroponym composed of two constituents, in which both elements provide a certain information about the named person.

In this essay I provide an overview of the typical name-formation processes characterising the formation of anthroponyms in Old Hungarian.

The article presents the achievements of professor Aleksandra Cieślikowa in the field of word-formation of proper names. The most important issues concerning the creation of anthroponyms in the Old Polish era selected from monographs and scientific articles are detailed. These issues include the problems of motivation in onomastic word-formation, the onimization process and the way of describing non-derivatized words by word formation and the participation of paradigmatic derivation in the emergence of Old Polish personal names. The views of Aleksandra Cieślikowa regarding Old Polish anthroponymy contributed to the development of onomastic word-formation, an integral part of the grammar of proper names and gave methodological foundations for the description of Old Polish personal names from a synchronic perspective.

There are many ways of choosing or creating a name, the ways of which vary from culture to culture, and from language to language. Chinese onyms are usually constructed of one or more elements, being mostly lexical items (morphemes or words), and retaining in most cases their own lexical meaning in a name, therefore they are usually semantically transparent. However, the “true” significance of some names is sometimes very difficult to discover, and the conclusion is often based upon guesswork. What is evident, Chinese onyms are not random combinations; they usually have a certain underlying significance, reflecting the reason or reasons why particular lexical items are used in the naming process. Chinese researchers usually do not mention “the meaning” of names as a criterion for their semantic divisions. Their classifications are mainly based upon the variously termed “reasons”, “methods”, “motivations”, or “sources of naming”. Therefore, this paper deals with some selected, typical and untypical, “methods” of creating Chinese names, especially given names and place names.

Scribes of the oldest part of the manuscript posted their names in two notes. In the fi rst note the final letter of the scribe’s name is seriously damaged. It is generally believed that his name was Mičьka (Мичька). The author proves that the scribe’s name is a derivative from the suffi x –ko (Mičьko). In the second note the name of the scribe is heavily damaged in the initial part, which results in a number of interpretations. According to the author’s studies the name of the scribe was Potamij (Потамий, gr. PÒtamoj).