Esztergom Évlapjai 2000

HORVÁTH Gáborné: Virágnevek - női nevek hagyománya 1807-ből

Gáborné HORVÁTH THE TRADITION OF FLOWER NAMES AS WOMEN'S FORENAMES During the recent decades a great part of young Hungárián parents have given their babies inharmonious, distorted, foreign forenames. The objective of the study: to rediscover our old Hungárián women's forenames, to attract the attention to the preservation of the purity of our native tongue in the everyday use and to the role of forenames in the preservation of our national identity. Historic background: the beginning of the I9th century saw the reform of the Hungárián language in our country. This process favourably changed and updated not only the language of literature but that of the sciences, as well. E.g.: the authors of the flrst Hungárián botanical classification - based on Linné -, Sámuel Diószegi (1760-1813, writer, botanist and priest) and Mihály Fazekas (1766?-1828, poet, agriculturist and botanist) enriched the Hungárián language with a plenty of botanic terms, which are still in use, and eloquent flower names. The author of the present study found 36 flower names of that work of botany among the presently valid, offlcially accepted index of women's forenames. These flower names - women's names - are presented as encyclopedical entries in alphabetical order and they are provided with explanations (e.g. when the ancient Hungárián meaning of the noun is the name of waters, geographical places, ornaments, plants, mushrooms etc.), the so-called joint saints (i.e. the names of which differ from the nominal form of the woman's forename) determined by the 2« Council of the Vatican, the indication of namedays in the calendar, a frequency survey as well as other personal remarks. The author presents briefly the periodization of the Hungárián forenames from the Hungárián Conquest to our times and refers to the social and economic causes of the usage of flower names as women's names. According to former surveys and the research of the folk-recall we may claim that especially on territories detached since the Treaty of Trianon (in present Romania, Slovakia and Yugoslavia) forenames of Hungárián origin have been one of the possible and legal means of preserving the identity - up to now. The process of the European integration raises the same question in respect of the Hungárián homeland, as well. The present study offers a possible response to this question. 77