On Some Current Trends in Kazakh Anthroponymy (Based on Materials from Almaty)

Abstract

This research paper offers a study of newborns’ names in Kazakhstan over the last two decades — from 2000 to 2018. The present study investigates changes and current trends in the national anthroponymicon, attributable to historical, social, political events that have taken place during the last 30 years. The data obtained from official documents (birth records of the Archives of the Department of Civil Registration and Apostilling of the city of Almaty) consisted of personal names of both genders. The current study relies on quantitative and qualitative methods. The authors show that there has been a significant change in the naming practices of newborn children in Kazakhstan. The data for the years 2000, 2010, and 2018 reflects the drift of parental tastes towards indigenous names, including names associated with national historical figures, and also the trend in favor of Arabic names associated with Islam and common to most Muslim societies. This trend, however, goes along with the opposite one, namely with the emergence of newly borrowed European names and naming patterns (particularly, double names unusual in the traditional Kazakh anthroponymicon). The quantitative analysis shows the increasing diversity of personal names in use with female names displaying a greater degree of innovativeness than male personal names.

Keywords

• kazakh language
• anthroponym
• personal name
• first name
• naming of newborns
• socio-onomastics
• onomastics of post-soviet states