Amata, Ancilla, Dewota, Elekta, Fides… – from Value to Name and from Name to Value. About a Specific Group of Monastic Names

Abstract

The article is a description and analysis of a group of the so-called appellate religious names, excerpted from the lists of nuns from 63 religious houses belonging to 10 different congregations (only houses where it is practiced to change one's name upon joining a religious order were taken into account). The analyzed names (30 units) are from the 17^th and the first half of the 19^th centuries. The anthroponyms discussed prove the uniqueness and specificity of religious names, even though there are much fewer of them than those selected from the collection of existing anthroponyms. The group of names described in the article confirms the openness of the set of religious anthroponyms (the creation of new units based on Latin appellatives allows for the continuous expansion of the monastic onomasticon). These names strictly belong to the social group in which they were created, they can be described as specific to monastic nomenclature, and most of them do not go beyond it, at the same time, reflecting the system of values that should be defined as specifically monastic.