Вопросы ономастики (Nov 2014)
On the Peculiarities of the Present-Day Functioning of Tatar Personal Names (With Reference to the Records of Kazan Registry Offices of 2002–2012)
Abstract
With reference to the records of the Registry Offices of the city of Kazan, the author analyzes the semantics and the word-formational features of contemporary Tatar personal names, the peculiarities of their functioning and development. The article takes into account only the names of the children born to Tatar families. The statistical analysis reveals the most popular and the rarest names in the period in question. The author suggests a lexico-semantic typology of Tatar personal names, devides the names into classes according to their origin, pointing out the expansion of Arabo-Persian names in the contemporary Tatar anthroponymicon and the decrease of popularity of Turkic names, and analyzes the most frequent word-formational patterns used for the creation of new names. The author also reveals differences in functioning between men’s and women’s names (the female anthroponymicon contains a greater number of international names while the men’s names more often follow the traditional models of name formation, etc.). The author argues that, though contemporary Tatar personal names bear a mark of past historical and ethnocultural processes, the associative potential of a name may vary in the course of time.
