The human names concept in English language and culture

UDC 811.111                                       

One of the few absolute universals of human language is the naming of people and places. In the languages of the world, the way in which naming is done varies greatly and in fascinating ways. The cultural realities of language communities are closely linked to this variation: If language is an expression, symbol and embodiment of cultural reality, naming is at the heart of the practices which constitute cultural reality. Personal names are cultural universals that are a reflection of the specific cultures in which they are created. In the Western tradition, names were considered meaningless beyond their individualising function. However, later studies have shown that even in these Western traditions, personal names carry social and cultural aspects such as gender, religion and history.

The cultural specificity of names and naming conventions makes them part of an active metaphorisation, "a culture-specific practice of language that calls for an explanation within an ethnopragmatic perspective". The use of names is embedded in a social context and differs depending on the interpersonal relationship between the participants in the communication (ie, the talker, the receiver or the referent ) and the situation (ie, formal or informal context). Furthermore, social meanings such as politeness, respect, disrespect, offence and even magical attack are created by the use, non-use and choice of alternative names for a person. The need to distinguish one person from another gives rise to the habit of naming [1].

In any language's onomastic field, nuclear constituents are anthroponyms. They include personal names in their formal (full), personal (short, hypocoristic), diminutive (deminutive-meliorative) and augmentative-pejorative forms, second and subsequent names, patronymic, patronymic-meliorative, patronyms, surnames, second surnames, nicknames, pseudonyms, nicknames, cryptonyms, street names, etc. Each nation has its own traditions of naming, which are expressed in the formality of the anthroponyms, their place in an individual bearer and in the whole ethno-society, the motives of naming, the structure of the names, etc. Each nation's anthropomorphic funds are diverse in their composition. More than one person can have the same anthroponym, because the list or register of names of all kinds (anthropo-nimicon) of each nation is relatively limited. The anthroponym is the most obvious way of indicating a person's status. Each linguistic-cultural community realises status-role semes in its own way in the form of different names.

All types of anthroponyms share a common functional feature: They can be used to name a person and to address him/her. Among them, only a personal name is highly individualised: every person has got it. Other types of anthroponyms may be voluntary, related to the historical and cultural traditions of the people, and diachronic. Personal names are chosen relatively arbitrarily (with varying degrees of obligatory selection from a fixed list - Christian and Muslim traditions, from nominative words with positive semantics - Chinese tradition, from words with wishful semantics - pagan tradition) [2].

Family names, patronymics and surnames are derivative units and are determined by family relations. The majority of the members of the ethno-linguistic collective do not use these names. Nicknames, street names, andronyms, pseudonyms, genikonyms, etc. are not given by the person himself/herself, but by other people. They can be used in contact with the bearer or only by mouth. Pseudonyms, nicknames, cryptonyms are the choice of the bearer of the name for different reasons. Several anthroponyms exist:

Personal Name — Name at birth;

Nickname in game or social network;

Patronymic — name given by father, grandfather, etc;

Surname — generic or family name;

Andronym —a woman's name, nickname or husband's surname;

Mononym — full name consisting of one word;

Nickname — an additional name given to a person by people around them;

Kryptonym — hidden name.

We could also use variables that are more or less obvious to us all, such as the gender, age and socio-economic status of their bearers, to identify patterns in the use of anthroponyms. It is also possible to map the diatopic variation in how different names get used. Finally, the diaphasic variation of the system is revealed by the existence of hypocoristic terms alongside others such as nicknames and pseudonyms. However, a name is not a label that automatically classifies a person; while it is generally true that we can identify gender from a name, there are often onomastic differences between different generations (we intuitively know that Jessica and Jonathan will correspond to the younger generation in Spain, for example), and we can even find indications of class. Having said that, a name does not become an infallible "marker" of those who bear it. There is not even a choice in some societies, where the community lays down fairly rigid rules that limit the options available. These customs may still be perceived in our society; many girls and boys inherit their names from their parents, grandparents or other family members, although all the data indicate that trends are changing. The tastes or opinions of parents and relatives now prevail, and the custom of passing on names is falling into disuse and even rejection. However, this freedom of choice has its limits; anthroponymic studies allow us to reconstruct the genealogical history of a community, but they also allow us to trace the history of attitudes and changes in tastes, fashions and values. A person's name is inextricably linked to his or her environment, and can provide an opportunity to reflect on a country's history, customs and mores, as well as - as in this case — the influence of language policies designed to favour a particular or minority language [3].

The study of the anthroponymic system of a given language in relation to proper names and culture occupies a special place among linguistic-cultural problems. This tendency is connected with the anthropocentric paradigm of modern linguistics, which involves the analysis of linguistic units in order to know their bearers. As it is known that anthroponyms are the most cultural signs that due to their interdisciplinary nature. The anthroponymic system of any language is the basic material for knowledge, for revealing the self-awareness of people, for understanding the psychology and characters of people belonging to a certain nationality or region. Due to the fact that the anthroponym has a complex nature, it depends on the cultural and social context of the time, which is especially noticeable at turning points in the development of society, this lexical unit cannot be studied from a purely linguistic point of view, therefore anthroponyms are the object of linguocultural research. Beyond the referential, anthroponyms perform certain communicative actions. Choosing personal names is a function of choosing language.

Moreover, this research is closely linked to the tradition and culture of the people, explaining the linguistic-cultural origin of a large number of anthroponyms taken from epics and data related to their origin and meaning. These include: body parts, because man as a natural entity (and culture) has a central role; natural entities, animals, colours, clothing and food; good and evil, because they represent prominent aspects of daily life; and biblical and mythological terms, because of their cultural relevance to the English-speaking world. Thus, anthroponym (from the Greek. Anthropos -a person and onym - a name) - section onomastics, the study of anthroponymes - personal names, patronymic names, family names, generic names, nicknames and aliases (individuals or groups), cryptonyms (hidden names). Anthroponymes have also been the subject of study in literary works, in the names of heroes in folklore, in myths and fairy tales. Anthroponymics distinguishes between folk and canonical personal names, as well as different forms of the same name: literary and dialectal, official and unofficial. Each ethnic group in each epoch has its own anthroponym - a register of personal names. The aggregate of anthroponyms is called "anthroponymy".

The linguistic dictionary highlights: "An anthroponym, especially a personal name, differs from many other own names (onyms) by the way of individualisation of the object: Each object of the nomination (person) has a name. The register of names is limited. Personal names are repeated, which forces to give additional naming. Official naming of a person in a developed society has its own formula: a certain order of anthroponyms and common names (ethnonyms, kinship, speciality, profession, titles, ranks, etc.)" [4].

It should also be emphasised that anthroponyms are different from other types of proper names (toponyms, zoonyms, cosmonyms, etc.). They play a leading role in cultural linguistics.

In the development of any onomastic system, various extralinguistic factors bring about changes. Changes in social, religious and cultural norms in the life of society have resulted in the loss of the significative and connotative components of the meaning of proper names in many cultures, in which the act of naming, based on the description of the universal attribute of the referent, has become a mere formality. The presence of only referential meaning meant that the image underlying the meaning of proper names did not correspond to the attributes of their bearers.

For example, the most common male names in the XI-XII centuries were William, Robert and Ralph, according to J. Hughes, who researched English surnames. The name John accounted for about 25 per cent of the total male population of England at the end of the fourteenth century. "If you had said the name John Johnes in a market place somewhere in Wales in those days, either everybody or nobody would have answered: everybody, because everybody would have thought it was his name; nobody, because nothing special was added to the name." [5].

Nowadays such names function in English: Norman (personal name Northmann from northmann — inhabitant of the north, Scandinavian), Siegmund (m.) — Sigmund (personal name from sigu — victory; munt - defence), Roy (m. Gaelic) — Roy (rhu — red, redhead), etc. The above shows that there is a formed anthroponymicon, expressed by a certain set of ready-made personal names to designate a person, in English as in any rational culture. Names of this order are "monofunctional signs that have the property of being unambiguously referential". Like deictic words, proper names have a reduced semantic structure and do not convey any objective information.

The above shows that in English, as in any rational culture, there is a formed anthroponymicon. This is expressed by a certain set of ready-made personal names to designate a person. Names of this order are "monofunctional signs that have the property of being unambiguously referential". In the same way as deictics, proper nouns carry no objective information.

As with the whole of living language, the class of anthroponyms is influenced by all the changes in society. Anthroponyms are seen as markers of time, social processes, cultural and personal identity. Anthroponyms can be considered as one of the main signs of the individual as a social being. The importance of the anthroponymic factor in the cultural system is confirmed by its participation in the resolution of the folklore context. The peculiarity of the function of the anthroponym in language and culture is primarily determined by its nature as a sign. The personal name as a class of lexemes is unique also because it comes from the limited and regulated resources. Anthroponyms deserve much more detailed consideration in the linguistic aspect, which this article can offer, but even the analysis carried out clearly indicates the peculiarities of the world view in each particular culture and the ways of forming the picture of the world and the identity of the nation and the individual.