Mental Aspects of Proper Names

To gain complete insight into name usage and name-giving, it is necessary to study it from three different perspectives: 1. First of all, researchers need to examine the mental process, that is, what happens in one’s mind while using proper names in conversations, what features the process of the acquisition, production, and comprehension of proper names has in comparison with common nouns. 2. Besides the mental level, it is also important to study the name stock as a system used for describing the linguistic characteristics of different name types and explore the interrelations within the name stock and between the names and other linguistic elements. 3. It is also necessary to consider names as parts of language functioning in conversation, in other words to study the circumstances of name usage and its pragmatical aspects: when one uses proper names instead of descriptions, what kind of names are preferred in different situations, etc. By referring to the psycholinguistic and neurolinguistic researches on mental aspects of names, this study endeavors to demonstrate why it is important for onomastics to take this aspect and knowledge into consideration