Ukrainian First Names in the Anthroponymic Space of the Czech Republic

Abstract

The problem of the Ukrainian first names functioning in the Czech Republic anthroponymic space is quite extensive and covers many issues. The article is focused on the research of the ways the Ukrainian first names are presented in the Czech onomastic papers, in particular, in the Czech anthroponymic dictionary Jak se bude vaše dítě jmenovat? (2017) by the famous Czech scholar Miloslava Knappová. The 2017 latest edition contains 17,000 Czech and foreign‑language forms of first names. Parents have the right to choose any of these first names (be it Czech or foreign) for their child, and if this first name is included in the above-mentioned dictionary, it is a sufficient reason for the chosen name official recording. In the lexical entries, the author provides the Ukrainian equivalents among other foreign‑language parallel forms. These Ukrainian counterparts, in particular, constitute the main source of our research. Also, in the article, the material recorded in the Ukrainian dictionaries has been used to compare different reference sources. To carry out the analysis of the Ukrainian first names functioning in the Czech anthroponymy, the author has used the linguistic descriptive method, comparative and statistical methods. The problem of the Ukrainian first names functioning in the Czech Republic is complicated by the fact that in the Ukrainian language, Cyrillic is used, and the Czech language uses the Roman alphabet. Principles to transliterate the Ukrainian names, written in Cyrillic, by means of the Czech graphemes are presented in the rules of the Czech orthography. It has been concluded that the rules of the Czech orthography are quite efficient in transliterating the Ukrainian names, so they can be used as a reliable example. In the article, various problems arising when the Ukrainian first names are transliterated using the Czech graphemes have been analysed. In particular, a special attention has been paid to the problem of transliterating the Ukrainian letter г in those first names, as well as peculiarities of transliterating the letters и and і, and the ways to render palatalization of the Ukrainian consonants. Issues related to transliteration of the Ukrainian letter є and the general problem of rendering Ukrainian names’ iotation have been analysed. The frequency of the studied names’ use in the Ukrainian anthroponymy has been studied. Several proposals on possible future expansion of the Ukrainian parallels repertoire in the Czech dictionary of first names have been defined. As a result of the analysis carried out, it has become clear that the repertoire of the Ukrainian first names, represented in the Czech dictionary, is very rich and varied, containing 409 Ukrainian male names and 271 Ukrainian female names. They are registered by the Ukrainian dictionaries of first names and correspond to the Ukrainian spelling of 305 male names and 215 female names.