Lithuanian Female Personal Names as Cultural Names Derived from Common Nouns from the Point of View of Speakers of Lithuanian as a Heritage Language

MÁRCIA SIPAVICIUS SEIDE Western Paraná State University (Universidade Estadual do Oeste do Paraná), Brazil ORCID id: orcid.org/0000-0003-2859-1749 Fields of research: Onomastics, Comparative Onomastics, Relevance Theory. DOI: doi.org/10.35321/all86-06 LITHUANIAN FEMALE PERSONAL NAMES AS CULTURAL NAMES DERIVED FROM COMMON NOUNS FROM THE POINT OF VIEW OF SPEAKERS OF LITHUANIAN AS A HERITAGE LANGUAGE¹ Lietuviški moterų asmenvardžiai kaip iš bendrinių daiktavardžių kilę kultūriniai vardai gimtosios lietuvių kalbos vartotojų požiūriu² ¹ I am thankful to the excellent translation revision by Professor Igor Antônio Lourenço da Silva (Universidade Federal de Uberlândia, ORCID id: orcid.org/0000-0003-0738-3262), who received funding from the Brazilian Graduate Support Program (PROAP) by CAPES (Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel). I am also thankful to the support provided by the Graduate Program in Letters (Language and Literature) (PPGL) at Unioeste, Brazil. ² Dėkoju profesoriui Igor Antônio Lourenço da Silva (Federalinis Uberlandijos universitetas, ORCID id: orcid.org/0000-0003-0738-3262), gavusiam finansavimą pagal CAPES (Aukštojo mokslo personalo tobulinimo koordinavimas) Brazilijos povuniversitetinių studijų paramos programą (PROAP), už nepriekaištingą vertimo peržiūrą. Taip pat dėkoju už paramą, gautą pagal Brazilijos Vakarų Paranos valstybinio universiteto Humanitarinių mokslų (kalbų ir literatūros) povuniversitetinių studijų programą (PPGL). 144 Acta Linguistica Lithuanica LXXXVI Lithuanian Female Personal Names as Cultural Names Derived from Common Nouns from the Point of View of Speakers of Lithuanian as a Heritage Language ANNOTATION There are Lithuanian female personal names derived from common nouns, as, for example the name Audra which cames from audra (storm). This kind of names corresponds to conventional female personal names, and some of them are exclusive to Lithuanian culture. Moreover, precise information provided by informant evinces that Onomastic Knowledge is part and parcel of their linguistic proficiency in Lithuanian as a heritage language showing that it is interesting for Onomastic to also consider popular knowledge and beliefs toward personal proper names. KEYWORDS: Onomastics, Anthrop onomastics, Lithuanian female personal names, lexical field, cultural personal name. ANOTACIJA Kai kurie lietuviški moterų asmenvardžiai yra kilę iš bendrinių daiktavardžių, pavyzdžiui, vardas Audra yra kilęs iš audra (vėtra). Šio tipo vardai atitinka tradicinius moterų asmenvardžius, o kai kurie iš jų būdingi tik lietuvių kultūrai. Be to, informantų pateikta tiksli informacija parodo, kad onomastikos žinios yra neatsiejama gimtosios lietuvių kalbos žinių dalis, atskleidžianti, kad onomastikos mokslui taip pat įdomu aptarti su asmenvardžiais susijusias populiariąsias žinias ir įsitikinimus. ESMINIAI ŽODŽIAI: onomastika, antroponimika, lietuviški moterų asmenvardžiai, leksinis laukas, kultūrinis asmenvardis. INTRODUCTION Some female personal names derived from proper nouns have been previously studied as examples of nature-related names, i.e., as “names derived from words designating natural phenomena” (Gudavičius 2013: 144). After consulting three sources of personal names (i.e., a database of personal names of Lithuanian citizens in 1989–2010, a register of citizens of Šiauliai born in 1999–2011, and various dictionaries), Aloyzas Gudavičius found that however this kind of name had changed in usage and popularity throughout the last century, “the natural component still occupies an important place in the Lithuanian anthroponymic system” (Gudavičius 2013:144) and are part of a repertoire of personal names which constitutes “the layer of the old national onomastics” (quoting Zinkevičius 2009: 134). In fact, names as those analysed in this article can be regarded as Lithuanian conventional personal names as they share the following features: 1) integration in the onomastic nomenclature of the country in a given period Straipsniai / Articles 145 MÁRCIA SIPAVICIUS SEIDE of time, 2) choice in accordance and harmony to domestic or local custom, and 3) connection with national or religious tradition (Felecan 2014: 133). This article focuses on Lithuanian female personal names derived from common nouns, argues that this kind of personal names highlights interrelations amongst language, culture, and common nouns, and shows that knowledge of personal names is part of the Onomastic Knowledge of speakers of Lithuanian as a heritage language. More specifically, it aims to: 1. identify Lithuanian female personal names derived from common nouns and organise them in lexical fields, 2. evince that speakers of Lithuanian as a heritage language has knowledge of this kind of personal names, and 3. show that some of those names are cultural names. Its starting point was Coseriu’s assumption that “to every [language] activity there corresponds a separate, autonomous kind of linguistic knowledge” (1985: 28) and Preston’s assumption that “beliefs about, reactions to, and comments on language by what we call “real people” (i.e., nonlinguists) are interesting, illuminating, and empowering from ethnographic, linguistic, and practical (or applied linguistic) points of view” (2002: 13). Despite the relevance of female personal names derived from common nouns to the Lithuanian anthroponymic system, a recent literature survey has retrieved only the aforementioned article by Gudavičius (2013) as the closest related to the present study. The survey was performed by the present author using DOAJ (Directory of Open Access Journals) on December 11th, 2022. The terms “personal”, “Lithuanian”, and “names” were used as keywords. In total, 21 titles were found, out of which 15 belonged to the field of interest. Research has focused on features of diachronic Lithuanian female anthroponymy (Ragauskaitė 2021), historical morphology of personal names formed by selected roots (Sinkevičiūtė 2007, 2010, 2013), etymological spelling of specific personal names (Zinkevičius 1981), origin of a noble surname (Čiūnaitė 2002), etymological origin of Polish and Lithuanian migrant first names in migration contexts in both countries (Walkowiak 2017), choice of first name by Lithuanian minority community in Poland (Walkowiak 2019), choice of first names in Lithuanian migration contexts in Brazil (Seide 2020), and translation of foreign personal names in Lithuanian language (Kvašytė 2018). The present research fills this gap, corroborates Gudavičius’s (2013) findings and Felecan’s (2014) assumptions and proposes an in-depth analysis that shows female names derived from proper nouns are part of the ideal speaker’s ³ As any review of literature is limited to its criteria of exclusion and inclusion, not all existing literature is retrieved in any query. Further research in this field can be found in Kuzavinis, Savukynas 1994; Sinkevičiūtė 2006; 2011; 2015 and Sinkevičiūtė, Griniūtė 2014. 146 Acta Linguistica Lithuanica LXXXVI Lithuanian Female Personal Names as Cultural Names Derived from Common Nouns from the Point of View of Speakers of Lithuanian as a Heritage Language Onomastic Knowledge (Seide 2021) and that some of them can be regarded as Lithuanian cultural personal names. 1. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK Scholarly discussions are abundant about the linguistic features of personal names. One of such discussions is related to whether they have meaning or not. While Mill (1806–1873) states that proper names are devoid of meaning because they serve just to make reference (Mill 2009: 38–40), his coeval Lower (1821–1876) contends that “all names were originally significant; although in the course of ages the meaning of most of them may have lapsed from the memory of mankind” (Lower 1849: 2). Following Lower, López-Franco (2014) investigated personal names derived from commons nouns in Arab and in an indigenous Mexican language. She analysed female Arab names such as Jamāl (beauty) and Karima (generous and noble) and indigenous female names such as Citlalli (star) and Tonatiuh (sun) in Náhuatl language. She concluded that personal names with transparent meaning are the rule rather than the exception (López–Franco 2014: 71). The very existence of personal names derived from common nouns seems to be evidence of López–Franco’s assumption that transparency in meaning is the rule in several onomastic systems. But then it begs the question: to whom are these personal names transparent? The notion of the ideal speaker’s Onomastic Knowledge seems to be useful to answer this question properly: “It is part of the speaker’s knowledge, it is the knowledge about the linguistic characteristics of proper names in his/her mother tongue and how they are used in the linguistic community of which she/he is a part. It should be noted this knowledge may or may not include those related to the study of the etymological meaning of proper names, but it certainly includes the speaker’s beliefs and attitudes about these names [...]. While beliefs concern how each one conceives the way names should or can be, and include subjective criteria responsible for evaluating (positive, neutral, or negative) proper names, attitudes indicate whether proper names are seen as being semantically opaque or transparent, that is, if they have some meaning or merely have a referential function” (Seide 2021: 213). When it comes to monolingual speakers, knowing their native language means knowing what the language uses as proper names, how they are pronounced, and how they are used. Besides those names, there can be some knowledge of some Straipsniai / Articles 147 MÁRCIA SIPAVICIUS SEIDE foreign names. The following table describes the ideal speaker’s Onomastic Knowledge. TABLE 1. Ideal speaker’s Onomastic Knowledge 1. procedural denominative meaning in everyday language (how proper names are used) 2. relationship between name and referent known or mentioned in everyday life (what names people and places have, for example) 3. repertoire (set and types of known proper names; it may include names in other languages) 4. pronunciation of known names and supposed rules for pronouncing unknown names (how names are pronounced) 5. spelling according to the orthographic rules of the language (it may include knowledge of the spelling of names in other languages) 6. grammatical information (such as gender and number of proper names)⁴ 7. constitution (number of names; it may be in a first name or in a toponym, for example) 8. associative meaning (it is formed according to the speaker’s experiences, with the referents of the names) 9. emotional meaning (present, for example, in hypocoristics in which there is an affective connotation in the names) 10. sociolinguistic factors (assumption about social class and gender of people’s names, for example) 11. ethno-sociocultural imaginaries (assumption about qualities of names, such as names in English having more prestige than names in Portuguese in the Brazilian culture) 12. name-giving process: who gives the name and when (it may include legal aspects of official name-giving) 13. motivation for naming (knowledge of the history of name choice, why a particular name was chosen) 14. uses and values of first names in the fictional world (literature, cinema, mini-series, soap operas, games, etc.) 15. etymological and/or historical meaning Source: Seide (2021: 214). When personal names are derived from common nouns, their meaning tends to be granted by heeding attention to it. Students of the former Šiauliai ⁴ Grammatical information depends on the language in question. In the case of inflected languages, such as Lithuanian, there is also information about the cases and their declensions. 148 Acta Linguistica Lithuanica LXXXVI Lithuanian Female Personal Names as Cultural Names Derived from Common Nouns from the Point of View of Speakers of Lithuanian as a Heritage Language University (Vilnius University Šiauliai Academy as of 2019) were asked about their names. One student’s answer showed that she knew the meaning of her first name because of the meaning of the common nouns from which her name comes: “My mom decided to name me Raminta as she expected me to be a calm person (1999 [the year she was born])” (Butkuvienė et al. 2021: 432). In contexts of language shift in a family and loss of mother language in future generations, there are cases where the Onomastic Knowledge of the language spoken by the parents slips away. For instance, Reyes-Contreras (2020) was born from a family of Mahazua speakers. According to him, the family decided not to speak or use the indigenous language to their offspring to avoid linguistic and social prejudice. When he was a child, he was called by different forms of his name Miguel: e Migue and ta Migue. By then he thought it was a hypocoristic form of his name. When studying Mahazua language as an adult, he discovered that those forms were just his own name adapted to Mahauza language (Reyes-Contreras 2020: 146). In the present research, the informants are adult speakers of Lithuanian as a heritage language that have dual or bilingual Onomastic Knowledge. Importantly, in the case of personal names derived from common nouns, linguistic knowledge is a prerequisite to Onomastic Knowledge. Following this assumption, it was considered that the lexicon corresponds to the “linguistic community speakers’ internalised knowledge of the lexical properties of the words”5 (Vilela 1994: 10). An analysis of personal names is not necessarily morphological or syntactic but rather semantic, as names can be analysed according to their lexical field. The name Audra (“storm”), for example, is associated with the field of natural phenomena. In the present research, the personal names listed by the informants were categorised into lexical fields, also called semantic or conceptual fields. A lexical field is the result of organising lexical items according to their meaning: “It is a paradigm consisting of the distribution of a continuum of content (lexical) by different units of the language [...]. Features that are common to all the lexemes of the field constitute the archis​​ememe [...]; the lexical fields are relatively open classes” (Vilela 1994: 23).6 A given word is associated with others by meaning and forms a field that is bordered by other lexical fields. For instance, the name “storm” can be related by meaning to the words “rain”, “windy”, and “fog”, which altogether are part of the field “natural phenomena”. “The related 5 “Compreendemos o léxico como [...] saber interiorizado, por parte dos falantes de uma comunidade linguística, acerca das propriedades lexicais das palavras.” 6 “Se trata de um paradigma constituído pela repartição de um contínuo de conteúdo (lexical) por diferentes unidades da língua [...] Os traços comuns a todos os lexemas do campo constituem o arquisseme​​ma [...] os campos lexicais são classes relativamente abertas.” Straipsniai / Articles 149 MÁRCIA SIPAVICIUS SEIDE words and multi-words unity in any given lexical field in any given language show us that language has divided up the semantic space” (McCarthy 1995: 21). The organisation of the lexicon in lexical fields in a certain language depends on the worldview made possible by the language itself because language, worldview and culture are interrelated. Importantly, culture is defined differently according to the researcher’s field of study. In this article, it is not seen as a product of intellectual achievements or as a kind of force that dictates norms of social behaviour but rather as something that is learnt by an individual while they are socialising in a group (Katan 2009: 74–75). Thus, this research does not consider the outer layer of culture that are “represented by the customs, norms of behaviour, artefacts and symbols attached to the group”; the focus is rather on “the deeper or inner layers, consisting of the beliefs and values held by a group” (Davies 2003: 68). Resorting to the iceberg metaphor used by Hall (1990) to define culture, the focus is not on visible elements, but below the waterline, i.e., the level that can be reached by lexical field research, as culture and language correlate, i.e., they are interdependent systems: “Culture cannot exist without language, and language is meaningless unless it relates to a culture” (Nida 2003: 423–424). While language is part of culture, culture is influenced and formed by language. Language and culture share the function to symbolise, represent and describe “events, ideas, values and ourselves” (Nida 2003: 423–424). Each language has its lexical items which are organised in lexical or semantic fields in a particular manner, reflecting how the language views and categorises the world. “Categorisation involves processes by which humans, in using language, identify and classify everything they can perceive with their five senses (one would mention the sixth sense too, because the subtle dimension or the unseen world of the divinities and ghosts is verbalised indeed). In addition, linguistic (cognitive) categorisation should not be confused with scientific classification. [...] In other words, the concept of categorisation explains how the world is structured in the mind of people speaking by means of their language but not necessarily based on scientific principles.” (Petrulionė 2015: 30) Petrulionė’s (2015) definition is especially suitable to common nouns. As to proper names derived from common noun, there is a re-categorisation (the common noun becomes a proper name). Not all common nouns are re-categorised, but just a few of them. There is a selection process that puts a cultural focus (Newmark, 1988: 94) on what is considered important enough to become a proper name. 150 Acta Linguistica Lithuanica LXXXVI Lithuanian Female Personal Names as Cultural Names Derived from Common Nouns from the Point of View of Speakers of Lithuanian as a Heritage Language It does not mean that all proper names are culturally focused, they can be also intercultural or acultural. While the former are proper names that exist and are used by several cultures and languages, the latter “are not identifiable as belonging to any particular language or culture” (Davies 2003: 71). Cultural proper names are those that are peculiar to and exclusive of a language and/or culture. To identify if a proper name is cultural, it is necessary to make a comparative analysis across languages. In this research, the Lithuanian repertoire of female names are compared to the repertoire of two other languages: English and Brazilian Portuguese. The linguistic process by which a common noun becomes a proper name is considered as a kind of weak translation of function. The term and concept of translation were created by French linguist Lucien Tesnière around 1940 with the aim of enabling a unified syntactic analysis, amenable to several languages and serving as a part of a theoretical proposal of General Syntax (Tesnière 1959: 380). To exemplify its purpose and object of investigation, the linguist cites and analyses a syntagma in three languages: “Le livre de Pierre” (French), “liber Petri” (Latin), and “Peter’s book” (English). As Tesnière shows, the subject is handled heterogeneously because traditional grammar differs in each language. In French grammar, the syntagma “Le livre de Pierre” is analysed considering the syntax function of the preposition “de”. The equivalent syntagma is analysed considering the syntax of the genitive case in Latin grammar and the use of a Saxon genitive in English grammar. However, the use of the concept of translation unifies these analyses and integrates them with each other: in all cases, there is the occurrence of the same phenomenon, i.e., the translation of the function of a word, i.e., “Dans son essence, la translation consiste donc à transférer un mot plein d’une catégorie grammaticale, c’est à dire à transformer une espèce de mot en une autre espèce de mot. C’est à ce changement de nature syntaxique que nous donnons le nom de translation” (Tesnière 1959: 67). In a translation, there is the change of category resulting of a change of function. Applying this notion to the change of the subcategories in question, i.e., common noun and proper name, there is a special kind of translation whereby a common noun starts to function as a proper name. Tesnière was aware of differences between proper and common nouns but did not account for the possibility of translation between those subcategories. He just claimed: “Les substantifs propres ont l’extension la plus limitée, puisqu’ils s’appliquent à des individus, mais en même temps la compréhension la plus vaste, puisque ces individus comportent un nombre infini de qualités. Les substantifs communs on une extension plus large, puisque comme leur nom l’indique, ils sont communs Straipsniai / Articles 151 MÁRCIA SIPAVIČIUS SEIDE à des groupes plus ou moins importants d’individus, mais en même temps une compréhension moins vaste, puisque ces groupes ne comportent en commun qu’un nombre moindre de qualités” (Tesnière 1959: 67). The function of a name as a common noun and as a proper name was considered by van Langendonck (2007) in his proposal to distinguish between proper name as function and proper name as proprial lemma to explain cases like the following examples. In those examples, the use of the name John and Napoleon in (3) and (4) make them function as common nouns and not as proper names: (1) “John attended a meeting today. (2) The emperor Napoleon was defeated at Waterloo. (3) You are talking about a different John. (4) He is becoming a second Napoleon” (van Langendonck 2007: 11). Based on the assumption that the translation between subcategories of the same class of words occurs in the same way as the translation between categories, it can be argued that in sentences (3) and (4) the first names were translated to common names through, respectively, the translational “different” and “second”. The phenomenon of interest in this exploratory study, however, is the inverse translation, i.e., from common name to proper name as illustrated in the sentences below: (5) Buvo titin galinga audra / The storm was extremely violent. (6) Mano draugė Audra yra labai graži / My friend Audra is very beautiful. While in (5) the common noun audra is used as such, in (6) it functions as a proper name. Whereas in written language the use of capital letters helps to indicate when a noun is a proper name, in oral language this perception is made exclusively through the pragmatic interpretation of the utterances in which the words are used. In the sample analysed, there are proper names derived from common nouns that are themselves translated names. These are adjectives that were moved to common nouns, and after this first translation, the word had its function transferred to the function of proper nouns. In the Lithuanian language, there is the personal name Aušrinė, which in its origin is an adjective that could be literally translated as “belonging to dawn, morning”. As argued by Zymovets (2021), there is no sharp distinction between common nouns and proper names; they differ rather in degree than in kind. Because of this, there are processes of ony m isation (the transfer process of common 152 Acta Linguistica Lithuanica LXXXVI Lithuanian Female Personal Names as Cultural Names Derived from Common Nouns from the Point of View of Speakers of Lithuanian as a Heritage Language names to proper names) and deonymisation (the other way round, i.e., when proper names become common names) in several languages. These processes evince that “proper name semantics shares many features with common nouns, with the crucial distinction of the first being designations of unique entities” (Zymovets 2021: 247). Once described the theoretical framework, the following section provides an explanation about the procedures of this study. 2. METHODOLOGICAL PROCEDURES As stated in the first section, the first objective of this research is to identify and organise Lithuanian names derived from common nouns and the second is to show that speakers of Lithuanian as a heritage language have Onomastic knowledge (Seide 2021). Bearing both objectives in mind, data were gathered through a survey of adult Lithuanian speakers in a private Facebook group with descendants of Lithuanians born in English-speaking countries. These informants are bilingual speakers for whom Lithuanian is a heritage language. The third objective of this article is to evince that some of the personal names mentioned by informants are cultural names, i.e., to show the uniqueness of Lithuanian women’s names. To this end, the names were organised in lexical fields and then checked for counterparts in both Brazilian Portuguese and English; otherwise, they were considered as cultural names following Comparative Anthroponomastics methodology (Fernández Juncal, Seide 2021; Seide, Frai 2019; Seide, Petrulionė 2018; Seide, Petrulionė 2020). When it comes to speakers of heritage language in comparison to native speakers, it is important to bear in mind that first language acquisition in a monolingual environment differs from heritage language acquisition in a bilingual environment. While a heritage language is used by just a certain group of people and for a more limited number of purposes, in a monolingual environment language is used by everybody and for all kind of purposes. These kinds of limitations might lead to very different inputs, resulting in different outputs. Balčiūnienė and Dabašinskienė compared how monolingual Lithuanian speakers residing in Lithuania and sequential bilingual Lithuanian–English speakers of the same age (78 months on average) living in the UK were able to create narratives orally. Their findings showed that while the narratives of bilingual children in Lithuanian language were longer, the narratives produced 7 They had learnt Lithuanian as their mother tongue and soon after they learnt English, thus becoming bilinguals. Straipsniai / Articles 153 MÁRCIA SIPAVICIUS SEIDE by monolingual children had much more uses of syntactic devices that help them create text cohesion (Balčiūnienė, Dabšinskienė 2019: 5). As a starting point, the name Audra was given as an example of a woman’s name derived from a common name. After this example, members of the group were asked whether they knew any other personal names of this kind. This stage of data generation and collection lasted four days: from 01 to 04 February 2018. The criteria used to evaluate the respondents’ answers were the following: being a female first name and having, in the language, a common noun formally and semantically related to the informed forename, regardless of its etymological origin. To carry out this linguistic examination of the names, online dictionary Zodynas.lt was used. This dictionary was selected because it informs, in different tabs, results for words that are common nouns – in the Kalbų žodynas⁸ (language dictionary) tab – and results for words that are proper names – in the Vardai (personal names) tab. Although online dictionaries may not be accurate sources of information, this dictionary was considered suitable for the purpose of finding evidence of usage both of proper names and common nouns. If the research were about proper names only, other source of information could be used, such as data available on website Vardai⁹. Examples of studies made using these data can be found in Seide and Petrulionė (2018, 2020). Importantly, this research does not focus on linguistic knowledge as described by Lithuanian linguistics and experts in Lithuanian language but rather on the Onomastic Knowledge of speakers of Lithuanian as a heritage language. Therefore, what might be seen as a naïve interpretation of the origin of the names given by the respondents is assessed in this article as legitimate knowledge of language as argued by Coseriu (1985) and more recently by Preson (2002). Regardless of the linguistic origin of the name, it was assessed whether the shift from common noun to first name was transparent to the native speaker. One example is the Lithuanian name Lilija, which refers to the flower “lelija” (lily). Another example is the name of mythological beings that are homonymous to common nouns, some of which with origins amenable to other interpretations. Being identical in form, only questioning those who chose the first names would inform whether the name giver thought of the meaning of the common noun or that of the mythological being. A case in point is the name Laima, which refers both to the common noun “laimė” (someone’s destination) and to the name of the mythological being Laimė and its variant Laima, a pagan demigod associated with childbirth and joy (EB 2018). ⁸ Available at Žodynas internete – Teksto vertėjas | Žodynas.lt (Available at: https://www.zodynas.lt). ⁹ Vardai VLKK (Available at: http://vardai.vlkk.lt). 154 Acta Linguistica Lithuanica LXXXVI Lithuanian Female Personal Names as Cultural Names Derived from Common Nouns from the Point of View of Speakers of Lithuanian as a Heritage Language Using these criteria, all names mentioned were selected, i.e., 100% of the names suggested were confirmed. This finding is indicative of the informants’ Onomastic Knowledge of Lithuanian. After organising the personal names in lexical fields,10 a search for their equivalent names, if any, was made in both English and Brazilian Portuguese. If there were any equivalent for a given name, this name was considered an intercultural proper name; otherwise, it was regarded as a cultural proper name. 3. ORGANISATION OF NAMES IN LEXICAL FIELDS As Table 2 shows, female first names mentioned by informants stemmed mainly from 10 lexical fields. The field of flora (which includes flowers) has more lexical items than others, followed by climatic phenomena, time, and feelings. The most frequent of them can be related to natural environments or ecosystems in how they describe the surrounds of traditional rural life in Lithuania. TABLE 2. Quantitative analysis of the sample Lexical Fields | Number of names flora (including flowers) | 10 climatic phenomena | 8 time | 7 feelings | 5 countryside products | 4 classical elements | 4 gems | 3 landscape | 3 abstract concepts | 2 music | 2 others | 6 total | 54 10 According to the lexical field theory, lexical items are organised in sets of names similar in meaning in a given language. The set of lexical fields of a language and the number of items of each field can reveal which parts of reality the language conceptualises and highlights. Straipsniai / Articles 155 MÁRCIA SIPAVICIUS SEIDE 3.1. Flora Half of the first names of this field are flower names: LILIJA, RAMUNĖ, ROŽĖ, SAULUTĖ, and ŽIBUTĖ. Giving girls flower names might be related to the cultural Western worldview that beauty and sensitiveness are suitable feminine features. As shared cultural features, some of these names have equivalents in other languages, i.e., the same flower is also used to name females in other languages. LILIJA is equivalent to “Lily” in English and “Lílian” in Brazilian Portuguese. ROŽĖ is equivalent to “Rose” in English and “Rosa” in Brazilian Portuguese. SAULUTĖ is equivalent to “Daisy” in English and “Margarida” in Brazilian Portuguese. ŽIBUTĖ is equivalent to “Violet” in English and “Violeta” in Brazilian Portuguese. As to RAMUNĖ, the common equivalent is “camomila” in Brazilian Portuguese and “chamomile” in English, but those nouns have not been translated into proper names in those languages. The following female first names also seem to be exclusive to Lithuanian female names: EGLĖ (spruce tree), GILĖ (acorn), JORĖ (goddess of Nature in Springtime), JORŪNĖ (derived from JORĖ), and RŪTA (rue). 3.2. Climatic phenomena The name Audra was given as an example. Findings pointed to AUDRONĖ, which is derived from the name Audra, as well as to the following names: MIGLĖ (fog), RASA (dewdrop), SNIEGĖ (form related to Lithuanian common noun “sniegas”, which means snow), SNIEGUOLĖ (derived from SNIEGĖ), VAIVA (word related to “vaivorykštė”, which means rainbow), and VĖJŪNĖ (breeze). Only the latter name is used in English-speaking countries but very rarely. The others are not used at all as a first name in Brazilian Portuguese. Interestingly, the names in this lexical field are related to the climatic characteristics of the country, where it rains substantially, and the winter is harsh. 3.3. Time The common nouns related to time that have been translated into personal names are: AUŠRA (dawn), AUŠRINĖ (derived from AUŠRA), LIEPA (July), RYTĖ (related to the form “rytas”, which means morning), VAKARĖ (related to the form “vakaras”, which means evening), VASARA (which means summer), 156 Acta Linguistica Lithuanica LXXXVI Lithuanian Female Personal Names as Cultural Names Derived from Common Nouns from the Point of View of Speakers of Lithuanian as a Heritage Language and VASARĖ (related to the form “vasaris”, which means February).11 In both English-speaking countries and Brazil, the corresponding common nouns are not used as personal names. Interestingly, the related name Aurora exists in both languages, but it comes from the Latin name of the goddess of dawn, and it is not as semantically transparent as it is in Lithuanian. 3.4. Feelings Six female personal names were cited in this lexical field. It is composed by the names GAILĖ (sorrow), VILTĖ (hypocoristic form of the full name Viltautė, which means hope for the nation), TAUTVILĖ (same meaning of Viltautė), LAIMA (related to the form “laimė”, which means happiness), and MEILĖ (love). None of them exists as personal names in English and in Portuguese-speaking countries. While two of them (Viltautė and Tautvilė) have to do with patriotism, the others seem to be related to the feelings of a mother or the family towards a new-born child. These names are mostly euphoric. The only dysphoric one is GAILĖ, which means regret and is a neutral adjective widely used in exclamations. In Lithuanian, the exclamation “Gaila!” equates to the English expression “What a pity!”. It is also interesting to note the synonymy between the names VILTĖ and TAUTVILĖ. The former is hypocoristic of Viltautė. In Viltautė, there is first the root of the word “viltis” (hope), followed by “-taut” (root of the word meaning nation in Lithuanian) and “-ė” (female gender morpheme). In TAUTVILĖ, there is, first, the morpheme “taut-” followed by “viltis” and the female gender morpheme “-ė”. Therefore, in both cases, there is derivation by composition. 3.5. Countryside products The following names refer to products of the field, either by extraction or by crop: BITĖ (bee), MEDA (related to the form “medus”, which means honey), LINA (related to the form “linas”, which means linen or flax), and RUGILĖ (rye). As BITĖ refers to beekeeping activity, the name was not considered as belonging to the field of animals, but to the product of the countryside 11 In these cases where the related form is masculine, the masculine morpheme ending in -s is changed to a feminine morpheme ending in -ė. Straipsniai / Articles 157 MÁRCIA SIPAVICIUS SEIDE because it is related to the production and trade of honey. All names of this field refer to the rural tradition of Lithuania. Indeed, linen and rye are products of cultivation in Lithuania. This lexical field does not exist in Brazilian Portuguese and English. 3.6. Classical elements The classical elements are those that the philosophers of antiquity considered to be the simpler substance with which all matter would have to be composed: VANDENĖ (related to the form “vanduo”, which means water), UGNĖ (related to the form “ugnis”, which means fire), ŽĖMYNA (related to the form “žemė”, which means earth), and by analogy SMILTĖ (related to the form “smiltys”, which means sand). As it happened to other lexical fields described above, there are no equivalents in Brazilian Portuguese or English. 3.7. Gems Also available in nature, gems form an important lexical field. It includes AUKSĖ (golden), GINTARĖ (amber), and GINTA (hypocoristic form of GINTARĖ). From the point of view of its chemical constitution, amber is not a mineral, but it was categorised as a jewel because this raw material is rare and used in jewellery making. Amber is fossilised tree resin found in more abundance in Lithuania. Except for the name Amber in English, the other names of this field are not used as female names in Portuguese or in English. 3.8. Landscape The names in this lexical field include DANGUOLĖ (from the sky), JŪRA (sea), and SAULĖ (sun). They describe an idyllic coastal landscape and have no equivalents in Brazilian Portuguese and English. 3.9. Abstract concepts There are two mentions in this field: GUODA (honour) and DALIA (destiny) with no equivalents in Brazilian Portuguese and English. 158 Acta Linguistica Lithuanica LXXXVI Lithuanian Female Personal Names as Cultural Names Derived from Common Nouns from the Point of View of Speakers of Lithuanian as a Heritage Language 3.10. Music This is another field with two mentions and no equivalents in Brazilian Portuguese and English: DAINA (a non-religious song) and DAINORA (those who want to sing, a name from the verbal syntagma “norinti dainuoti”12). 3.11. Others Finally, category “Others” includes mentions to names with just one occurrence in a given lexical field, namely: AIDA (feminine form of “aidas”, echo, from the field of sound), AINĖ (descendant, from the field of kinship), AUSTĖJA (weaver, from the field of profession), UNDINE (mermaid, from the field of mythological beings), SVAJONĖ (dream, from the field of psychic phenomena), ŽYDRŪNĖ (bluish, from the field of colours), and ŽIEDĖ (feminine form of “žiedas”, which means ring or blossom, from the field of objects). None of them has equivalents in Brazilian Portuguese or English. 4. FINAL REMARKS: FEMALE PERSONAL NAMES AS CULTURAL PROPER NAMES Following the categorisation of Davies (2003), female personal names with no equivalent in English and Portuguese were considered cultural proper names. Except for four names derived from flower names and one name derived from the common noun amber, all the remaining 48 names are cultural proper names. In other words, they are names peculiar and exclusive to the Lithuanian repertoire of female personal names. The quantity and diversity of these cultural proper names hint at cultural traits. It is specially the case of lexical fields related to the rural lifestyle. The names analysed in this article are conventional and partially correspond to common sense (lay knowledge of proper personal names) about what is seen as a feature of what it is to be a Lithuanian, as described, for example, in a book aimed at presenting the country to tourists: 12 In this case, first there was a transfer of function, the verb turned into a common noun, and after that the common noun became a proper name. The syntagma “norinti dainuoti” means ‘they want to sing’. Straipsniai / Articles 159 MÁRCIA SIPAVICIUS SEIDE “Although several generations have grown up in urban areas, we are inseparable from the land: a true Lithuanian will manage to plant several potato shrubs even on his hight-rise window ledge” (Kairienė 2001: 5). Besides, most of lexical fields correlate to the ideal of lietuvybė (‘Lithuanianness’) described in the same book: “The basis of Lithuania culture is a love of nature, especially of tree and forests [...] Historical and exceptionally beautiful natural sites have become Lithuania’s symbols, bearing nearly the same status as the official state flag, emblem, and anthem. The waves of the Baltic Sea throw pieces of amber, known as Baltic gold, onto the beach. It is also a token of our national identity and a symbol of our originality, resilience, and strength” (Kairienė 2001: 56). As descriptions of national cultural features of the Lithuanian people and the semantic content of the lexical fields of female personal names derived from common nouns converge, the present analysis seems to corroborate that names of this kind are conventional female first names in Lithuanian. Considering the incipient literature on Lithuanian female personal names derived from common noun (see Gudavičius 2013), the present article sets out to fill this gap. Its analysis corroborates Gudavičius’s (2013) by indicating the existence of a category of female personal names derived from common nouns related to nature in Lithuanian anthroponomy.13 It also confirms Felecan’s (2014) assumptions. This kind of names is 1) conventional female names in Lithuanian, 2) part of the ideal speaker’s Onomastic Knowledge (Seide 2021), and, to some extent, 3) cultural personal names from Lithuania. Moreover, the precise information given by informant evinces that Onomastic Knowledge is part and parcel of their cultural and linguistic proficiency in Lithuanian as a heritage language. However, further research is needed, especially surveys with native speakers of Lithuanian and surveys that assess whether findings vary according to informants’ age and level of education. 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Teigiama, kad šio tipo asmenvardžiai išryškina ryšius tarp kalbų, kultūrų ir bendrinių žodžių ir parodo, kad žinios apie asmenvardžius yra neatsiejama gimtosios lietuvių kalbos vartotojų onomastikos žinių dalis. Straipsnį sudaro šios dalys: po įžangos einanti pirmoji straipsnio dalis pateikia teorinį pagrindimą ir šio žvalgomojo tyrimo prielaidas; antrojoje dalyje aprašomi tyrime taikomi metodai; trečiojoje dalyje duomenys klasifikuojami pagal leksinius laukus, o ketvirtoji dalis apibendrina tyrimo rezultatus. Tikrinių žodžių analizė patvirtina, kad šio tipo vardai atitinka tradicinius moterų asmenvardžius ir atskleidžia, kad kai kurie iš jų yra būdingi tik lietuvių kultūrai. Be to, informantų pateikta tiksli informacija parodo, kad onomastikos žinios yra neatskiriama gimtosios lietuvių kalbos žinių dalis. Įteikta 2022 m. sausio 2 d. MÁRCIA SIPAVICIUS SEIDE Rua Rio Grande do Norte, 1363, Marechal Cândido Rondon, PR, 85960–970, Brazil [email protected] 164 Acta Linguistica Lithuanica LXXXVI