Abstract:

Although the curricular requirements in Slovakia do not explicitly contain knowledge of onomastics, the curriculum of the Hungarian language and literature subject offers numerous possibilities for including it in the curriculum of the Hungarian minority schools in Slovakia. In addition, due to the interdisciplinary nature of the study of onomastics, it can function as an excellent tools of curricular integration. Nevertheless, students’ knowledge of onomastics is rather imperfect.

The study investigates the knowledge of onomastics of students of a Hungarian minority four year secondary grammar and a trade school in Slovakia via a survey based on questionnaires. In the first part of the survey I asked about the meaning of family and first names. In the later parts of the survey the students had to answer questions such as how common they think their own family and first names were, but I was also interested in their nicknames as well as their relationship towards their own name.

The research also investigated whether the student respondents are familiar with their parents’ motivations for first name selection. I also asked the students whether they are familiar with the date of their own name day, whether they celebrate it, and if yes, then when exactly. The research was also aimed at finding out what students’ opinions of their own names were. In the study I also touch upon name contactology, which deals with the onomastics questions originating in linguistic contacts.

I considered this important because the name use of Hungarians of Slovakia – thus the students I surveyed, too – is affected by the Hungarian-Slovak bilingual environment, therefore the contact phenomena also appear in the name material. The results of the study show that a large proportion of the students does not possess adequate knowledge about their own name. Unfortunately, the conviction that the teaching of onomastics is detrimental to the curriculum is still typical.

Keywords:

Onomastics, names, family name, nickname, first name, name contactology.