Constructing history – constructing names

Personal names of early Hungarian history and the posterity

Abstract

Constructing history – constructing names. Personal names of early Hungarian history and the posterity

The topic of the paper is how people of modern times attempt to approach the onomasticon of personal names of the past, of which they lack sufficient knowledge; and how they create a picture of it for themselves and their peers. The paper presents the topic with the help of examples from different eras and genres of cultural history. The paper is based on sources, originating from centuries later, of personal names of the Hungarian Middle Ages, especially the time of the Hungarian conquest of the Carpathian Basin (the end of the 9th century). In the case of the 13th-century Gesta Hungarorum, the intentions of the author and the methods he applied to create and give personal names to narrate the events of the Conquest, of which he had little knowledge, can be easily identified.

The writers and poets of the end of the 18th and the beginning of the 19th century – which was the era of national awakening, language reform and romanticism – also exemplify how authors could use old or create new personal names in their historical works influenced by the conditions of their era. Continuing the topic, the paper discusses the process and methods of renewing the onomasticon of first names in national contexts, the role of first names registries from this point of view, and how these often paint a misleading picture of their subject, and thus Hungarian history. Finally, the paper deals not only with the laic considerations of our oldest personal names, but also with the problems of their discussion from a historical point of view, emphasizing the need to involve not only historical onomastics but also the approaches of literary onomastics, folk and applied onomastics.