Integration of the russian christian personal names into karelian use

Abstract

This article traces the development of the Karelian Christian anthroponymicon in relation to canonical and folk forms of the Russian Orthodox name list. It is shown that after the adoption of Orthodoxy in 1227, the Karelian pre-Christian name list was gradually replaced by an Orthodox one. At the same time, Russian secular forms from adapted calendar personal names, whose modifications were common in the adjacent Russian territory, became entrenched in Karelian usage. The latter were formed primarily by truncating stems: Griga (Grigory), Penta (Pentelei), which were often formed with suffixes (Grisha, Grikhno, Grinya). While being adopted into Karelian usage, they, on the one hand, retained some Russian dialectal features, while on the other, they underwent significant Karelian phonetic processing. The article outlines the main points of phonetic adaptation of the Russian name list. Morphemic adaptation also occurred during the process of integration. A set of Baltic-Finnic suffixes has been identified which, when added to an anthroponymic base, perform a social and diminutive function. The source material is a card index of long-term fieldwork on anthroponymy. Data on Karelian surnames and toponyms, which preserve many name variants no longer in active use, was also used. Data from census books and registers from the 16^th and 17^th centuries was also used.