Theoretical foundations of composing a reference book of regional toponyms

The article deals with the linguistic issues of composing a reference book of regional toponyms - a genre that requires special consideration in national lexicography. The assortment of these issues gave the possibility to carry out complex description of regional toponyms on the basis of semantic, functional, and orpthologuos criteria that let unify the names of Volgograd region settlements that are registered in various documents. The significance of the composed reference book is determined by several factors - the presence of local subsystems of geographical names in Russian toponymy; the inconsistency of current orthography norms on using capital letter in compound proprius names and fused-with-hyphen spelling of toponyms and off-toponym derivations; the lack of linguistically justified explanation of peculiarities of grammatical norms in the field of proper names use. The reference book of regional toponyms is based on the object description (toponymic vocabulary), principles of lexical units selection (description of spelling and grammatical properties of toponyms, encyclopedic information), the glossary (full list of toponyms of Volgograd region), typical article. The articles in the reference book are arranged in lexicographical zones with grammatical and semantic markers, lexicographical illustrations, other lexicographical labels, word etymology including. The reference book on Volgograd region toponymy is addressed to executive and administration authorities, journalists, regional ethnographers.