VARIATION IN THE OFFICIAL FEMALE ONOMASTICON OF UKRAINE: BETWEEN NORM AND ABNORMALITY

Iuliia MAKARETS,
PhD in Philology, docent, chair of Ukrainian language, National Pedagogical Dragomanov University; 72-B Maiakovskiy St., Kyiv 02232, Ukraine

Е-mail: makarets_iuliia@ukr.net
ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5372-5820

Heading: Language and time
Language: Ukrainian

Abstract
The article deals with sociolinguistic analysis of modern official female onomasticon of Ukraine. Its dynamics reflects processes, which are taking place in language system, and changes in society, social demographic and ethnic pattern, cultural markers and values, even the extent of legal regulation of social relations. Sociologists are interested in personal names as a means of social categorization and differentiation of individuals. Legists see them as a tool for one’s legalization and as an object of legal protection. Anthropologists study them as special units of communication and interaction between generations. For linguists they are a specific typexplore them linguists – ists of means of lexical nomination. Linguistically onomasticon is a valuable source of information on the current state of language norms, level of linguistic culture of the population, and the status correlation between languages in society.
According to the date of the Ministry of Justice of Ukraine, the repertoire of newborn girls’ names in 2015–2019 exceeded half a thousand units. It’s due to the magnitude of globalization processes in naming, restoration of national naming traditions, rising social freedom in choosing names, and, sometimes, the decay of sense of responsibility in naming and insufficient language culture. About third part of female names appears as phonetic, orthographic and morphological variants.
Ukraine is a multinational state and representatives of other nationalities and national minorities maintain their own naming traditions. Ukrainian spelling of these names in documents often is inconsequent. Often variants arise due to the ambiguity of transliteration, Ukrainian-Russian language interference and violation of Ukrainian spelling standard. Much less it is a result of alive alternation in the Ukrainian language.
Rows of variants of the same official female name consist from two to five or six units. Among them there are normative and anomalous variants. In first case main and optional variants can be distinguished. Optional variants are not conventional in language practice but they do not violate the essential features of national language system (over time, some of them may become more popular than the main variant). Linguistically such variants are the same unit, the natural manifestation of potentialities of language system. But legally, person’s name can’t be spelled differently in her documents.

Keywords: proper name, onym, onomasticon, anthroponym, phonetic variant, morphological variant.

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