Sociocultural aspect of urban toponymy in Quebec (Canada)

The article deals with the names of Quebec (Canada) intercity objects as sources of sociocultural information. We compared Russian and Canadian toponymic terminology and described the basic stages of formation urban toponymy in Quebec. Much attention was paid to the activities of Municipal Toponymic Committee, which had developed selection criteria for city names, spelling rules, made a card-file of intracity names, and legislatively approved the reasons for renaming of objects. The article presented the most significant examples of descriptive, secondary and memorial urban toponyms of Quebec. We concluded that the group of memorial urbanonyms, based on the first names of landowners, famous political, religious and military figures of Canada, was one of the most frequently used. The list of urbanonyms indicated the economic and sociocultural dynamics of the city development.