ARHIVELE OLTENIEI - Universitatea din Craiova

Professions and functions with a special statute in the past 153and with a great tradition in the history of our nation, which doesn’t actuallymeans that the ones not so frequently used, which appeared in a certainconjuncture in our history, didn’t become patronymic.From those presented above, we ca find in the structure of the actualanthroponomy the next ones (the figures 8 represent the number of the peoplewho have these names): Aprodu – 727; Aprodul – 5; Armaşu – 156; Armăşoiu –15; Armăşelu – 43; Beceriu – 29; Becerescu – 12; Cămăraşcu – 11; Ceauşu –673; Chelaru – 7.754; Chelariu – 3.671; Chelărescu – 11; Ciohodariu – 29;Ciohodaru – 261; Clucerescu – 93; Diac – 2.551; Diacu – 528; Grămătic – 71;Grămăticu – 233; Izbaşa – 37; Paharnic – 1; Paharnicu – 84; Paic – 414; Paicu– 1243; Pitariu – 314; Pitaru – 711; Postelnicu – 3.994; Seizu 84; Serdariu – 1;Serdaru – 332; Sofragiu – 62; Spătar – 265; Spătărelu – 64; Spătariu – 1.135;Spătaru – 2.426; Stolnic – 10; Stolniceanu – 187; Stolnicu – 484; Vornicu –3.859. Iorgu Iordan also mentioned in his Dictionary 9 the following names:Cafegiu, Cafigiu, Cămărăşescu, Capuciu, Casapu, Comisu, Comişel.It is interesting the fact that the appellatives ceauş (attested 10 : 1535-1546), diac (attested: 1527), grămătic (attested: 1415), paharnic (attested:1415), pitar (attested: 1489), postelnic (attested: 1515), spătar (attested: 1499),stolnic (attested: 1389-1400) – for giving only few examples, remained activefor several hundred years (and still exist), passing from the category of thecommon nouns, into the category of the proper nouns.Searching the archive’s documents, allow us, in general, to obtaininformation regarding the names of the old professions. And these occupationsshow us – to their presence or absence in a temporal interval (along with otherelements) – the characteristics of an era, from the linguistically or extralinguisticallypoint of view.In order to properly know and better explain the elements and thedifferent phenomena in our vocabulary (and not only), we have to distinguish theway in which the past came into the present and the transition stages of thelanguage in its ever chancing cultural medium.The historical approaching of a science, or of any aspect regarding thehuman activity, actually represents the studying of the temporal successions ofthe people and events, and the studying of the causal connections of theinfluences and currents which can be discovered in these aspects and which canalso explain them 11 .8 They were taken from the archive of the Onomatology Laboratories from the Facultyof letters of the Craiova’s University, constituted in 1996.9 Iorgu Iordan, Dicţionar al numelor de familie româneşti, Bucureşti, The Scientific andEncyclopedic Publishing House, 1983.10 The attestations were extracted from Dicţionarul elementelor româneşti dindocumentele slavo-române. 1374-1600 (DERS), (red. resp. Gh. Bolocan), Bucureşti, EdituraAcademiei, 1971.11 R.H. Robins, Scurtă istorie a lingvisticii, Iaşi, Polirom, 2003, p.16.