Names of cafés and coffee bars in Budapest (1920–1944)

Abstract

Names of cafés and coffee bars in Budapest (1920–1944)    

The study examining the names of cafés and coffee bars used in the period between the two world wars first describes the basic constituents of the names as well as the legal regulations referring to them. The author gives the functional-semantic classification of the new names emerged in the period comparing the frequency of their types with the frequency of name types in the previous period between the turn of the century and the end of the First World War. The most important changes: in contrast with the war years the motivated names become dominant again over the unmotivated ones (57,2%). The proportion of names of localizing function increases to 34%, whilst that of names referring to the owner is reduced to 16,1%. Names of reminding function are much less characteristic now (28,2%) than during the war. In Budapest as opposed to other parts of the country in the last group foreign-related names are more common than Hungarian-related ones (their proportion is 3 : 2). As a result of this and the increase in frequency of internationally used shop names, the proportion of foreign names in the period is around 30%. These changes make the names of the period similar to those of the first few years of the century. Similar tendencies can be observed with respect to the complete name stock (new and old names) of the period, though the speed of change is much slower in these years than in the war period. Finally, the most fashionable names of the era are discussed.