Lietuviešu iesaukas: parādība un tradīcijas

LTReikšminiai žodžiai: Onomastika; Pravardės; Semantinė motyvacija; Nicknames; Onomastics; Semantic motivation.

ENThe paper is based on the investigation of the modem Lithuanian country people’s nicknames recorded in 1977-1984 from the entire territory in which the Lithuanian language is spoken. The total set consists from more than 22,500 records. There are two primary reasons for the existence of modem Lithuanian nicknames; one is onomastic and the other is psychological. For onomastic reasons nicknames appear in the communities where a great number of people have the same surname. Lithuanian countryside communities used to be i quite stable. Marriage or division of parents’ land by the sons spread the same surname sufficiently widely. So it is natural that in such communities the nicknames are used for purposes of identification. Another reason for nicknaming is the reaction of members of the community to some individual human feature which seems to them unusual and perhaps even unacceptable because it is rare and not typical of the community. In accordance with their motivation, the nicknames fall into ten categories. However fust four categories contain 76 per cent of all the nicknames investigated. These groups are physical features (31 per cent), kinship references (18 per cent), social activities (16 per cent) and speech contents (11 percent). [From the publication]