WSPÓŁCZESNE MOTYWACJE IMIENNICZE W WOJEWÓDZTWIE PODLASKIM NA PODSTAWIE BADAŃ ANKIETOWYCH
MODERN NAMING MOTIVATIONS ON THE QUESTIONNAIRE SURVEY MATERIAL

Summary/Abstract: The present paper attempts to establish the motives behind baby‑naming trends and parents’ choices in the recent years (2018–2021). It also aims to present the repertoire of the names of children aged 0–2 collected by means of a questionnaire created for the purposes of this research study. The repertoires of female and male children’s names were compared with those of their parents’, which allowed for determining differences and presenting the changes in naming trends over the two generations. The questionnaire created at the platform https://www.interankiety.pl was widespread in Facebook groups focusing on pregnancy, labour and maternity. It was active from the 18th November to the 6th December 2020. A semantic and quantitative analysis showed that the collected material reflects the current fashion in naming: the most popular onyms in the repertoire of names from the parents’ generation, Łukasz and Anna, do not occur in that of children’s names. Conversely, the most popular children’s names, Jan and Zuzanna, were not recorded in the collection of parents’ names. The material attests to the growing popularity of multiple names and an increasing variety of onyms, which is corroborated by a large number of individual names in the analysed corpus. Parents’ responses concerning naming motivations show that subjectively interpreted aesthetic considerations dominate (65%), followed by the combination of first names and the last name (34%). The third most popular factor was the possibility of shortening names and creating diminutives (31%). Other responses to the closed questions and many extensive answers to the open questions prove that baby‑naming is very important to the modern parent. Parents’ motivations are complex and multifaceted, significantly different from the Old Polish naming practices, as shown by the analysed data.

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