The paper presents a catalogue, with description, detailed map location and references to first publications, of new place names introduced mainly during the Polish Geodynamic Expeditions to West Antarctica, 1984-1991. In the South Shetland Islands, new place names were introduced in parts of King George Island and Deception Island (Some new names for Admiralty Bay, King George Island and Penguin Island, introduced prior to 1984 but not yet formally described, are also included here). In Antarctic Peninsula, new place names have been introduced at Hope Bay (Trinity Peninsula), Arctowski Peninsula-Andvord Bay (Danco Coast/Gerlache Strait) and Paradise Harbour (Danco Coast).

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 article concerns the history and unique nature of local names derived from exonyms, such as Alexandria, Spain and Lisbon. It describes both past and contemporary onyms, i.e. the names of housing estates, such as Little Tuscany, and apartment buildings, such as Rome, London and Mont Blanc, which are the continuations of the toponymic model launched in the past. The author embeds this model of names in a broader cultural context by referring to language universals. In addition to the rich collection of the oldest biblical names that have been transferred to present names, transfers of old names can be observed among contemporary names. In the past (in the early nineteenth and twentieth centuries), these were mainly the names of countries and, less frequently, those of cities, lands and geographic objects. Today, toponyms are usually based on the names of European cities, attractive geographic objects (lakes, rivers, islands, mountains, volcanoes) and, more rarely, states. While the names of biblical lands were fascinating and attractive in the past, they are almost absent in contemporary names, and if they are present, they concern culturally fixed images such as that of Eden. Both formerly and today, the creators of this kind of names show a longing for the creation of a new world which is no longer inhabited by God in a strictly religious dimension, but a secular one where happiness, peace and joy are sought. In both characterised spaces, the names transferred serve commemorative functions and also imitate coveted spaces which cannot be physically inhabited but can at least be imitated by their names. Formerly, they were real imago mundi representing sacred places (e.g. names such as Calvary). Today, they are created as part of the contemporary architectural tendency for coherence in planning space, names and design.

This article is devoted to the official forms in the inflection of chosen toponyms in Poland and the variety of dialectal singular and plural place names. The variety of place names often diverges from the rules of language use, and causes language users problems. The toponyms have peculiar, locally used inflected forms; the outside-linguistic (non-linguistic) factors that are social and local factors, play an important role in the inflection of place names. The local population often uses other forms than those recommended by official sources. I focus my attention on the genitive forms of toponyms because it is mainly here that one can see clear variations in the official and local inflection of place names. The material shows that the singular masculine toponyms have genitive endings: -a (in the official variety), -u (in the local variety), for example Biłgoraj, gen. Biłgoraja, but in the local dialect: biłgoraju. The singular feminine place names have genitive endings: -ej (in the official variety), -y||-i (in the local variety): Brzezowa, gen. Brzezowej, but Brzezowy in the local dialect. The plural toponyms have genitive endings: -ø, -ów, -i (-y), but in the local circulation the ending -ów is dominant and demonstrates a wider expansion in use. For example Brzózki, gen. Brzózek, in the local variety Brzuskuf; Budy, official gen. Bud, but Buduf; Burnie, gen. Burni, in the local dialect: Burniuf. The gathered material reflects a hesitation in the inflection of toponyms, as the linguistic customs and presented dialectal records of forms of genit ives of place names show a significantly diverse approach towards the Polish language.

The main object of this article is to present the history of the establishing legal regulations in Poland concerning additional place names and other official signs in the languages of national minorities. This process has been always very difficult, because as it teaches the experience of many European countries, it affects issues related the national identity, the role of the national language in the state and the tradition of recognizing linguistic diversity in a given country. In the article, I will try to show that the introduction of such regulations in Poland has been with the one hand an important, perhaps even historical, change in the functioning of the Polish society and administration which consisted of official admission of other languages into the public sphere thus violating the dominant tradition of Polish language dominance in the country. From the other hand, the presence of a minority place-names indicates a change in the way in which minority groups publicly present their ethnic identities. It takes place not only through maintaining national cultures and learning the mother tongue but also through increased visual presence in the public sphere.

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.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the distinguished properties of by-names as forms different from official ones, to analyze their structural and semantic features and to search for their historical evidence. By-names of Chinese places should not be defined as unusual and informal, since actually in many cases by-names are formal and very common in China nowadays. By-names are generally bestowed on important places (mostly cities) that win the public interest. Most of them have two structural parts, the front specific parts are determiners / qualifiers and the back ones are generics. The generics generally are: cheng 城 ‘town / city’, du 都 ‘capital’, jiang 江 ‘river’, shan 山 ‘mountain’, dao 岛 ‘island’ etc. The lexical meanings of lexical items forming specific parts of by-names mainly refer to animals, plants, minerals, local manufactured products, climate and natural scenery, geographical location, humans, areas, etc. Chinese contemporary by-names, used on various occasions, vary in frequency and stability. The by-names discussed in the paper only account for a small proportion and are listed just due to their relatively high frequency, stability and acceptability.

Geographical names are extremely helpful in giving evidence of early settlements and their inhabitants due to their solid anchorage in the landscape, even in the case of population changes. Through the investigation of these place names, information can be gathered not only on the name giver, but also on the settlers who took on the names later on. Therefore, it is considered that any linguistic investigation has to start from the river and place names of a region.

The utilization of geographical names yields the following findings:

— The centre of Old Slavic names is situated on the northern slope of the Carpathian Mountains, approximately between Bukovina and Krakow; it is based on a substrate of older, Indo-European hydronyms.

— The expansion of the East Slavic tribes bypasses the Pripyat Marshes and extends further through Central Russia and especially to the North and the East.

— West Slavic settlers reach their new settlement areas through migration from Bohemia and further on to Saxonia and Thuringia, and also through Western Poland to Brandenburg and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania.

— The migration of the South Slavs takes place in two big, yet separate flows, on the one hand through the Moravian Gate to Slovenia, Hungary and Croatia, and on the other hand on the Eastern edge of the Carpathian Mountains to Serbia and Bulgaria.