Original scientific paper
Christian Origin in First Names in the Villages of the Dubrovnik Republic
Nenad Vekarić
; Institute for historical sciences of CASA in Dubrovnik, Dubrovnik, Croatia
Niko Kapetanić
Abstract
The onomastic system could not stay unaffected by a number of complex social, political, religious, economic and cultural changes on the Dubrovnik territories in the 14th and 15th century (Pelješac, Dubrovnik primorje, Konavle). Those colliding changes took place throughout several centuries, with the existing folk-slav onomastic system on one hand and the new Dubrovnik-catholic on the other. The result came out in a form of a new onomastic system with prevailing Dubrovnik and Christian, elements but with an evident Slav under layer. Christian and Slav names formed the basis of the new system, but some popular Slav names also appear less frequently. The fact that an absolute transformation or storage of the old was impossible caused reaction on both sides — by forming equivalents Dubrovnik adapted the remaining popular names to the Christian forms and the people adapted new Christian names to the popular ones. The domination of the Christian name fund could have been hinted at the very beginning of the process during the first 60—70 years of the Dubrovnik rule over these territories. Due to strong assimilation mechanisms of Catholicism and Dubrovnik itself as well as wise and forethought policy of intergrading new territories the whole process broke through relatively quickly.
Keywords
Christianity; personal names; Dubrovnik Republic
Hrčak ID:
241185
URI
Publication date:
20.6.1990.
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