Több keresztnév választása a 18. században Újvárosban
Megjelenés dátuma: 2010
Kulcsszó: keresztnév
Győr
18. sz.
kettős keresztnevek
felekezeti megoszlás
katolikus
evangélikus
magyar
Győr
18. sz.
kettős keresztnevek
felekezeti megoszlás
katolikus
evangélikus
magyar
Abstract:
MÁRIA VARGA-HORVÁTH, Giving more than one Christian name
in the 18th-century Újváros (Gy r, Hungary)
In the 18th century, giving more than a single Christian name to a child was an exceptional
phenomenon in communities of Hungarian native speakers. The practice of choosing two Christian
names was not widespread until the middle of the 19th century in Hungary. The fashion of giving
two or three Christian names, however, became more and more popular as early as the first
decades of the 1700s in territories of the country where German immigrants lived. In the 18th
century, in the settlement called Újváros, today a district of the Transdanubian town of Gy r,
many German-speaking inhabitants lived; most belonged to the Evangelical Church and fewer of
them were Catholics. Among these people the German practice of giving more than one Christian
name was thriving up to the end of the 18th century, when it abruptly ended. Characteristics of this
tradition can easily be observed if time (its peak was in the 1740s and 1750s), gender (it was more
common in the case of female names) and denomination (it was typical in the Evangelical Church)
are involved. The practice of choosing more than one Christian name was primarily motivated by
the parents’ nationalities: surnames and other relevant data suggest that this tradition was fostered
by the German-speaking inhabitants of Újváros. They brought this practice with them from
Germany: in their new homeland, next to an ordinary Hungarian first name (e.g. János ‘John’,
Mária ‘Mary’, Anna ‘Anne’) they tended to choose a German or a more fashionable Hungarian
Christian name. This tradition, however, faded away after a few generations.