Czech First Names of Foreign Origin as Witnesses of Multicultural Contacts in Central Europe

0503121 - ÚJČ 2020 RIV HU eng J - Journal Article
Harvalík, Milan
Czech First Names of Foreign Origin as Witnesses of Multicultural Contacts in Central Europe.
Onomastica Uralica. -, č. 12 (2018), s. 281-288. ISSN 1586-3719
Institutional support: RVO:68378092
Keywords : onomastics * Czech language * personal names * first names
OECD category: Linguistics
Method of publishing: Open access
http://mnytud.arts.unideb.hu/onomural/kotetek/ou12/19.pdf

Contacts between people speaking different languages can have a wide variety of outcomes and one of them can be traced in the system of proper names. The territory of the present Czech Republic has always belonged to areas where members of various nations and ethnic groups have come to close contacts. That fact is also reflected in the Czech anthroponymy where many names of foreign origin can be found. The penetration of foreign personal names into the Czech lands had begun already before the 13th century and has continued in several waves until present days, as a consequence of international relations along with great historical and societal upheavals connected with political, economic and cultural changes. Apart from the names of domestic origin, the system of Czech first names include a large amount of names of biblical (Hebraic, Greek, Latin) and German origin, but, among others, also names from Romance languages, names from the Slavic area and – especially in last years – names from English, Muslim names, names from various African languages and Asian (particularly Vietnamese) names. This paper analyses the above-mentioned development of the system of Czech first names and foreign elements in them in greater detail.
Permanent Link: http://hdl.handle.net/11104/0298521