Proper Names in the Light of Theoretical Onomastics

90 Vincent Blanárfrom scholars in the social sciences. From the beginning of the 19 th century,the older pre-scientific interpretations were replaced by historical andphilological interpretations which focused mainly on revealing the etymology(derivational basis) of a name. Etymological analyses represent animportant material especially for habitation history. Even now, researchinto the etymology of proper names is attractive although it does not completelycover the extensive problems of this rich layer of vocabulary. Afterthe First and, in particular, the Second World War, the systematic andorganised research into proper names developed its own methodologyand what had been an auxiliary branch of the historical and other socialsciences was transformed into an independent discipline (onomastics) inwhich the linguistic component (for a long time a positivistic attitude prevailed)took precedence over the historical and geographical components.The systematic processing of the three basic areas of proper names (bionyms,toponyms and chrematonyms) was required to develop an appropriateonomastic methodology and methods for particular working areas.Since the second half of the 20 th century, a general onomastic theory hasbeen developing. Onomastics has become established as a relatively independentdiscipline of linguistics with extensive connections to other disciplinesof social and natural sciences.The social significance of onymy in communication and in state administrationpromoted a rapid growth of research into onomastics whichcould also be sourced from extensive materials and from the elucidationof actual problems in specialist journals of onomastics. Its developmentwas positively affected by regular international congresses on onomastics(the first one was held in Paris in 1938) and conferences organised by thenational onomastics committee (the Slovak Committee on Onomastics wasestablished, on the basis of the concept of research into onomastics by V.Blanár, in 1964). Onomastics has its high-level international organisation(Comité international des sciences onomastiques). At the end of the 20 th centuryand in the 21 st century, several international compendia were published,demonstrating what aims have been achieved by current ono mastics;some of them even aimed at contributing to a certain methodo logical approximationin order to form a better basis for future comparative syntheses(compare Reader zur Namenkunde 1994 –1996; Słowiańska onomastyka.Encyklopedia 2002 / 03; Namenarten und ihre Erforschung. Ein Lehrbuch für dasStudium der Onomastik 2004).