Karelian Written Documents as a Source for Studying Deanthroponymic Settlement Names

A cross-sectional analysis of Karelian written documents reveals that possessive anthroponymic elements in settlement names gained prominence over time, reflecting shifts in residents' perceptions and the scribes' influence rather than landscape features. While names rooted in ownership or first settlers dominated numerically, their word-formation patterns—such as -ov/-ev, -in, -sk-, and -shchina—remained unstable until the late 17th to early 18th centuries, when structural stability emerged, albeit with geographically limited spread. The study leverages published and manuscript sources from four Zaonezhsky pogosts (Kizhi, Tolvuisky, Chelmuzhsky, Shungsky) alongside comparative toponymic tables by Mikhail Vitov to trace historical variations in the region's toponymic system.

Kyurshunova, I. A.,. (2020). Karelian Written Documents as a Source for Studying Deanthroponymic Settlement Names. Вопросы Ономастики, 17(3), 156–185. https://doi.org/10.15826/vopr_onom.2020.17.3.038