Names And Their History

Have you ever wondered how many names there are in the world? Billions of people have their own name. What part of the names can be repeated in different countries, but most of the names will be unique. The study of names is the science of "onomatology" ("onoma" - from the Greek name, name). The science of anthroponymic studies the proper names of own people.

The names of people appeared not accidentally, they are closely related to the way of life, culture, environment and human habitat. Each name bears some imprint of its era. In ancient times, each person had some "nickname", or "name" given to him individually, so that you can talk about it or refer to it. The names of people around us today have a different history. Some have appeared quite recently, while others have survived from the Slavic epoch, some of the names have remained unchanged for centuries, another part has undergone changes, there are names that completely disappeared from use or from literary sources. Let's look at the old calendar. There we can find very short names consisting of only two letters - the male names Eve, Or, Ii, and female-I. These male names have irretrievably disappeared, and the female names have survived to this day. The names consisting of three letters are much larger - male Titus, Nile, Cyrus, Agn, Guy, Dan, Var, Noah and female - Aza, Ada, Zoe, Eve, Leah, Ida. But there are names very long and complex consisting of five, six syllables of Nobypolyon, Thessalonica, Asklipidota. Can we find people with such rare names? Probably not. Usually there are two, three and four-syllable names. These are the disappeared ancient Russian male names Abash, Azei, Boyan, Avis, Ivor, Egup and surviving to our time Oleg, Igor, Osip, Ivan. Extraordinarily beautiful are the lost names of women Lubomil, Lubislav, Luchezar, Vlastimir.

Many names were considered paired, in which both male and female names were considered equal - Valentin and Valentina, Alexander and Alexandra, Eugene and Eugenia, Yaroslav and Yaroslav. Other twin names could only be preserved for women or men. Female names of Paul, Cyril, Athanasius, Zinovy, as well as the male names Anastasius, Antoninus, Claudius, Agni left us. The name Marin was almost never met, even in the past, and the name Marina still reigns among our contemporaries.

Interesting names appeared in Ancient Russia. Some were associated with the hair color (Chernysh, Chernyava, Belyak, Belukha), others - with the external dimensions of the body (Tolstoy, Dry, Long). The character of a person could determine his name - Zabava, Smeyana, Nesmeyana, Molchan, Smirnoi. There were names associated with the birth of the child Winter, Veshnyak, Moroz. The long-awaited children in Russia were called Bogdan (God given), Bazhena (God), Lubava (beloved), Zhdan, Zhdana (long-awaited), Schaslav (Happy), Zlata (golden). In the names of Old Russian people the entire numerical range of the First, Second, Tretyak, Chetvertak, Pyatak, Shestok, Semak, Osmoy, Devyatko, Desyatov are represented.

There was a belief that to protect your children from evil spirits you must give them a bad name, repelling evil spirits - Nemil, Nelyub, Nezhdana, Malice.

People have always taken names very seriously. You can choose a name according to the church calendar, with the help of stars or a dictionary of names, in memory of some person or following the fashion. But what kind of name you would not choose, remember that by picking up the child's name, parents determine his fate. Let your children be happy!