Remnants of Theophoric Names in Turkic Name Giving

Year 1982, Volume: 46 Issue: 182, 291 - 296, 20.04.1982

L. Rásonyı

Abstract

In my study entitled "The Psychology and Categories of Name Giving Among the Turkish Peoples" (Hungaro - Turcica, Budapest 1976, pp. 207-223) I divided Turkic personal names into six major groups, and within these groups further 14 categories of men's names and a couple of women's names were distinguished. A very important semantic category of Turkic names is that of the theophoric names. In my Onomasticon Turcicum in preparation, more than sixty data are collected from different ages and different Turkic peoples for the name Töngri - berdi "God - giyen" (in their corresponding forms), partly they are names of historical persons. The name of "God" could be substituted by different words, thus e. g. Ogan - berdi (A. v. Le Coq, Türkische Namen in Indien: GarbeFestgabe, 1927), in the Islamic cultural sphere Allah - virdi (Abramzon, Rozdenie kirgizskogo rebenka: Sbornik Muzeja Antropologii i Etnografii XII, 1949, p. 107) and Quday - berdi (Abramzon, I . c.). The latter two names served as basis for Russian patronymika such as Allahberdiev (ein Chivaer in 1793: A. f. w. K. v. R. XVIII, p. 352), Quday - Berdiev (Turkmen name in 188o: Grodekov, Vojna IV. Pri1o2enie, p. 39). The name Töngri - berdi itself has a variant Tagribirdi on Arabic soil, e. g. the great historian of the Mamelukes was called Abul Mahasin Ibn Tagribirdi (1411-1469). In the Arabic chronicle of this Ibn Tagribirdi, in the period between 1441 and 1469, sixteen such names are registered, and the same abundance of data is characteristic of another famous Mameluke historian Ibn Iyyâs.

Keywords

Theophoric Names, Turkish, Name Giving, Name of God