Janus Pannonius Múzeum Évkönyve 14-15 (1969-70) (Pécs, 1974)

Néprajztudomány - Csalog, Zs.–Mándoki, L.: Phenomen of the Fashion in the Hungarian Rural Christian Namint. (Ethnolinguistical Study)

PHENOMENA OF THE FASHION IN THE HUNGARIAN RURAL CHRISTIAN NAMING (Ethnolinguistical Study) ZS. CSALOG—L. MÁNDOKI „In the course of the collection of Christian names in our country it was a custom to ask some villagers about the names occured most frequently. The inquired person told then some Christian names, naturelly the names of his own children or relatives, these were registered. I found this method to be quite doutful and instead of this I tried to adopt the statistical method. For this reason I noted down from the church register of christening how many new-born were christened by the name of then J made an answer from these for the problem of Christian names used most frequently." — wrote Jankó in 1893. The greatest figure of the Hungarian ethnographical sciences was this sholar died young, as it was written about him — respectively on his monography of the Balaton surroundings, by Kálmán that „He is developing the collection of place-names also theoretically forth ..." Not only in his monography of the Balaton but ten years earlier in his survey on Kalotaszeg then Torda, Aranyosszék and Torockó Jankó was dealing with the placenames, we have to reckon him in the general way even as an ethnographer-pioneer of the Hungarian name researches according to the evidence of the passage quoted in the introduction and the rich material of the family- and Christian- names of these monographies. Our ethnographical literatur paid always attention to the (Christian) name-material of the investigated communities, researches however with such method as that of János Jankó was undertaken by the Hungarian Ethnographical Map only nowadays. A relatively detailed synchronic section on the Christian names of the Hungarian language territory will be given first only by the data of this. Both of us were moved by the Map toward the onomatology and we learned together from the lectures of the VII International Anthropological and Ethnographical Congress in Moscow, where it was given a separate section to the ethnolinguistic. We think that we can arrive at lasting results only by the complex cultivation of our study and mainly by its mathematical way, this is solvable only at phenomena measurable exactly and valuable statistically, the Christian-name material of the register of birth is such a one. Our researches are based always on a complete survey of data when we are publishing only extracts for evidence. Analysis by taking of samples (e. g. The Christian name material of a Transdanubian village since 1790 by Géza Németh) are not reliable for us. The works giving synchronic sections are more instructive: m the smaller fields (see ördög MNy LXV) the names are the most expressive at the cartographic treatment but the compiled data of other regions in similar periods may be placed beside the compilation of Béla Kálmán from Debrecen in a very constructive way by revealing the differences of macro-regions. Regularities are hidden behind the hardly findable or quite simply inprovable reasons of name fashions. If we inspect the graphs 1—2 of the Christian names of women and men of the Calvinist in Siklós, based on seven and a half thousand data, we can state that the names of men are less changeable, there are no too big leaps there. The Samuel and Daniel „runs down" by the hungarian „reform period", at this time starts however the Lajos (Lewis) its conquering way, which leaps from the 12,1% of the earlier seven year period between 1891— 1897 up to 28,3%, it becomes the most frequent man's -name. It is impossible not to see the connection between the strengthening fashion of this name and the action started for the bringing home of Kossuth's mortal remains. We can bring still a counter-example too: we examined the years between 1945—1956, instead of increasing, the number of Mátyás (Matthias) was even decreasing ... Let us see the graphs of woman's name of the Calvinist in Siklós too (1). Enormous wavering is brought here by the fashion. Rebeka (Rebecca) and Ruzsin(ka) were mass name at the beginning, then it disappears completly, at the end of the last century the name Margit (Margaret) starts to „run upwards", the Eve