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Archiver > LITHUANIA > 2003-06 > 1054930892


From: David Zincavage <>
Subject: Re: [LITHUANIA-L] Fw: Lithuanian Onomastics
Date: Fri, 06 Jun 2003 13:21:39 -0700
References: <2409A35B3E1C8D4D929583798DF5AA78D7D138@whmail01.walterhav.com>


The sense in which I meant there is no Polish equivalent to the Lithuanian
noble two-root names refers to the fact that a number of these names of
pagan era linguistic origin were still in use at the point when fixed
surnames began to be used in Lithuania, early in the 15th century.
Patronymic names formed from these have survived through the centuries right
down to the present. At the very same period of time, Lithuania's
conversion to Christianity was eliminating the use of such names, replacing
them with the names of Christian saints and Biblical figures, so we are
usually able to tell that a patronymic Lithuanian name based upon one of
these two root names descends from the period before roughly 1450. There is
no Polish equivalent in the sense that no equivalent event to Lithuania's
conversion changed Polish naming practices at a specific known period giving
us a clear indication of the period of creation of some particular class of
Polish names.


----- Original Message -----
From: "Leon Stevens" <>
To: "David Zincavage" <>; <>
Cc: <>
Sent: Friday, June 06, 2003 8:14 AM
Subject: RE: [LITHUANIA-L] Fw: Lithuanian Onomastics


> There is no Polish equivalent to the Lithuanian... <

Actually only a handful of two-part Slavic names survive and are in
common use among Poles today. We know of many of the others only
through very old documents and other Slavic languages, which selected
different sets of ancient names to preserve. Modern nationalism infects
politicians and scholars alike so that both struggle to "prove" that
their respective cultures have always been hermetically sealed off from
those of their next-door neighbors. The fact of the matter is that
before barbed wire fences and guard stations hampered movement and
communication on the continent, movement (and subsequent) contacts were
fairly fluid in ancient Eurasia. Like the copper-age man who was found
frozen in the Tyrolean Alps, and who had traveled on foot from central
Italy to Austria, for centuries Europeans and Asians traveled far and
wide exchanging products, technologies and religious ideas (which for
them were also technologies to a great degree). As Mr. Minakowski has
suggested, for all we know, two-part names may represent a widely-shared
custom dating back even to Indo-European times.


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