ВОПРОСЫ ОНОМАСТИКИ | PROBLEMS OF ONOMASTICS

Maria V. Akhmetova
Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy
and Public Administration
Moscow, Russia

Names of Children City Dwellers in the Contemporary Russian Language (According to Electronic Sources)

Voprosy onomastiki (Problems of Onomastics), 2014, Issue 2 (17), pp. 120–128 (in Russian)

Received 24 March 2014

Abstract: The paper deals with the names of citizens (katoikonyms) with the meaning of children, which are widespread in the contemporary Russian language, including the media, fiction, poetry, forums and blogs. For this research the author artificially formed the names of citizens-children for 1101 Russian cities and towns by means of the diminutive suffix -(')onok (sing.) / -(')ata (pl.), which is specific for analogous Russian names. These names were then checked with Yandex search engine and, additionally, with Integrum media base. The search revealed names of citizens-children of 113 places (i. e. 10,5 %). In the aspect of word-formation, the names of children are determined by the conventional katoikonyms, which are characteristic of literary speech. In the texts written in the respective places, the names of children dwellers are formed in conformity with the locally adopted variants of katoikonyms, while in the texts of the external authors they can correlate with the locally unaccepted variants, e. g. for Tula: tuliachata ‘citizens-children’ < tuliaki ‘adult citizens’ — in the local texts vs. tul’chata < tul’chane (unlikely variant in Tula regiolect) — in the external texts. At the same time, if variance of katoikonyms is characteristic for a regiolect, local authors can also form variants for names of children: e. g. for Tver: tverichata / tveritiata ‘children’ < tverichane / tveritiane ‘adults’. These names are used for: 1) proper names (organizations, institutions, communities, celebrations, etc.), concerned with childhood; 2) occasional naming in texts of different genres and styles; 3) systematic usage in regiolects (e. g. in Central Siberia).

Key words: Russian language, names of citizens, katoikonyms, word-formation, Internet language, language of media, regiolects

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