From Katažina to Edvin: The Names Of Poles in Contemporary Lithuania

Abstract

The article presents the names bestowed on Polish children in Lithuania after 1990, a topic which merited little scholarly attention to date. First, by way of introduction, the specific Lithuanised written forms of these names are described and compared with their standard Polish and Lithuanian equivalents. The naming trends are then analysed on the basis of three sets of data: the top ten male and female names among Lithuanian Poles (as compared with those in Lithuania and in Poland) in the years 1991, 2000, 2010 and 2013; the names of 1284 students, all born after 1990, from fifteen Polish-language schools in Lithuania; finally, the names given in the years 1991–2011 to children in the municipality of Salčininkai (Soleczniki), where the percentage of Poles is the highest in Lithuania. Interviews with members of the Polish minority in Lithuania, focusing on naming issues, have also been used for fact-finding. The research shows that the name choices of Poles in Lithuania are becoming increasingly different from those in Poland, yet not exactly convergent with Lithuanian trends. Poles almost never use names of Lithuanian origin and prefer instead simple names, not necessarily of Polish origin, that look in writing almost the same in Polish and in Lithuanian. Especially striking among these are Germanic names, such as Edward, Ernest, Eryka, Greta, never particularly popular in Poland.