Original scientific paper
Preliminary Classification of Family Names on the Peninsula of Pelješac
Nenad Vekarić
; Institute for Historical Sciences of the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts, Dubrovnik, Croatia
Abstract
Family names began to stabilize on the Pelješac peninsula in the 14th century, after Stonski Rat became a part of the Dubrovnik Republic. At the time, Dubrovnik’s already diversified and detailed administration required precise identification of people who were summoned, or those who engaged in any kind of legal activity. However, family names in the Dubrovnik Republic were not created at one moment by a decree. They had been formed over the centuries, determined not only by administration requirements (especially in legal matters of inheritance, which required both the identity of the claimer and the proofs of his blood relations), but also by the needs of the people, who, in search for successful and appropriate communication, created an entire onomastic system. The process lasted until the late 18th century, when the last family on the peninsula of Pelješac acquired its family name. The second part of the study gives a preliminary classification of the Pelješac family names, categorizing them into three major groups according their origin: 1) family names descending from the ancestor’s name; 2) family names descending from a sobriquet; and 3) foundling family names. Family names with sobriquet origin are further classified in four groups, with regard to whether the sobriquet originated from a) parentage; b) occupation; c) characteristics; and d) an event in which the named person participated. Apart from this classification, the study gives names of unestablished origin. The author also describes adoption of foreign family names, adapted to Italian and Croatian language, and also modified family names, i.e. those which by their origin belong to one of the aforementioned groups, but whose owners acquired them intermediately, or in a specific way.
Keywords
Hrčak ID:
239978
URI
Publication date:
20.6.1992.
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