Toponyms from Bács-Kiskun county

Publication of a fragmentary onomasticon

Abstract

Toponyms from Bács-Kiskun county
Publication of a fragmentary onomasticon

The study provides insight into research that began in 2017 and aims to publish a fragmentary collection of geographical names from Bács-Kiskun County that has survived in manuscript form. It reviews the history of efforts to collect the toponyms of the county, presents the unique properties of the name stock, outlines the principles of processing and possible methods of publication, and highlights some aspects of onomastic analysis. Much of the tangible results of collecting geographical names of Bács-Kiskun County in the 1970s and 1980s were destroyed or lost, while others were scattered in the archives of various institutions. The author of the study has identified and collected manuscript materials in recent years and edited them into an up-to-date database. The collection has been supplemented with historical evidence and maps. The over 40,000 entries making up the database are stored in a structure that can be connected to the Hungarian National Toponym Registry currently under development. The collection of place names is already searchable on a website created for the purpose, and in the future, it will be supplemented with present-day collections. The database may also be published in the form of a name dictionary. Some examples in the study illustrate the significance of the published data, the possibilities of their linguistic, historical, sociological, and onomastic use.