Microtoponymy of the Village of Abramovka, Talovsky District, Voronezh Region

Abstract

The paper considers the microtoponymy of the village of Abramovka, Talovsky district, Voronezh Region. The analysis of rural microtoponymic naming peculiarities is based on upstream research of Russian linguists, including representatives of the Voronezh Onomastic School (headed by Professor G. F. Kovalev). The origins of names are identified with reference to historical and geographical data. The fieldwork character of the research gives extra significance to the testimonies of the local population in clarifying names’ motivations. The time coverage for the village microtoponymy development takes from the late 1930s and lasts until present day. The study provides a catalogue of onyms grouped depending on the named objects and a dictionary of village microtoponymy with each name given a lexical-semantic description, and obsolete and gradually obliterated microtoponyms noted. The author has found that the popularity of a particular microtoponym relates directly to the social relevance of the microobject it designates. It was concluded that the microtoponymy of the village of Abramovka in the Talovsky district of the Voronezh Region reflects both the microtoponymic features typical of the Russian onomastic system and local semantic, structural, and motivational specificities.

Keywords

• Russian language
• regional microtoponymy
• folk place names
• Voronezh region
• regional onomastics