Folia onomastica Croatica, No. 24, 2015.
Original scientific paper
A contribution to the study of the reflections of the saint’s name Stjepan in Croatian anthroponymy
Ankica Čilaš Šimpraga
orcid.org/0000-0001-7655-4139
; institute of croatian language and linguistics
Abstract
This paper will give an overview of many various reflections of the saint’s
name Stjepan in the Croatian anthroponymic system. This will be accomplished
through the use of historical sources, dialect dictionaries, and onymic data collected
through fieldwork. The origin of the Croatian saint’s name Stjepan, as
well as its various reflections in Croatian anthroponymic system, is amply explained
in the article. Special emphasis is placed on the similarities with, and differences
from, the anthroponymic systems of other closely related South Slavic
languages. Among other questions, the author examines the veracity of a popular,
generally accepted attitude about the affiliations of certain reflections of
the name in question to the Croatian (such as Stjepan) versus the Serbian (Stevo,
Stevan) anthroponymicon. Sources and historical attestations have corroborated
the assumption that these stereotypes are largely based upon the real situation.
However, a certain number of these personal names appear in unexpected
milieus. For example, the personal name Stevo stands out, as it is attested not only among Serbs but as an informal personal name among Croats as well. A historical
overview of personal names stemming from the Greek Stephanos and Latin
Stephanus proves that social intuition, which influences the choice of personal
names, changes through time. Finally, it also shows that different versions of a
certain personal name bare no national omen.
Keywords
Saint Stephen; Saint’s name; personal name; anthroponymy; social intuition; stereotypes
Hrčak ID:
156918
URI
Publication date:
10.4.2016.
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