Names of the Onuškis parish natives

When analysing the surnames of residents of Onuškis (Rokiškis district) surroundings, 5 sources were used: 1) a list of church parishioners drawn up in 1939 (102 surnames); 2) data of the general population census of Lithuania of 1942; 3) a list of pre-war population and settlements prepared by the Onuškis museum staff (more territory was covered than in the church list, but less surnames - 74 - were mentioned); 4) a list of population draw up by Juodupė ward in 2004; 5) memories of current Onuškis residents about their neighbours, collected by the author during the expedition of 2005. The comparison of sources of 1939 and 1942 shows that major changes took place in the beginning of the World War II - as many as 23 (23%) surnames disappeared, for instance, in 1942 in Onuškis alone the families of Butkevičienė, Diržys, Gasiūnas, Kanopa, Rusenąs, Šaulys, etc. indicated in the list of 1939 no longer lived there. Even greater changes can be noticed when comparing pre-war population lists to the source of 2004: 58 out of 154 (more than one third or 38%) different surnames mentioned in various sources disappeared, e.g., those of Ahlems, Apvalainienė, Ginotis, Kurlienė, Lašienis, Raupys, Skrivelis, Šakoms, Tindžiulis and many others. More than a half - 58% (89 surnames) - of local Onuškis region names are appellative by their origin. Most of them (74%) are Lithuanian, originating from nicknames or description of an occupation or profession, e.g. Aukštulis, Čeičys, Čirūnas, Deksnys, Keliuotis, Kruopienytė, Lukštaraupis, Pundžiulienė, Rinkas, Šūsnys, Vabolis, Žin- dulis, etc. A slightly smaller number of surnames of the baptismal names origin were found when compared to the number typically found in Lithuania: 33% (50 surnames). Just like in other parishes of Lithuania, 23% (35 surnames) of surnames originating from the baptismal name abbreviations were found in Onuškis. The majority of them - even 80% (28 surnames) - are deviated from Slavic baptismal names, such as Alekna, Grindimas, Jurams, Rastinas, Raima, Talius, Tūmas, etc. Similar to other villages of Lithuania, there are only a few - 6% (10 surnames) - associated with the old Baltic double-stem words, e.g. double-stem - Narbutienė, Seibutis, Tervidys, also, those that have disintegrated and now have only one stem - Gimtas, Šedys, Vilevičius, etc. When it comes to formation, surnames without the suffixes typical for surnames dominated in Onuškis region in the 20th century - there were 60% (93 surnames), such as Ažukukis, Liūga, Skabeikis, Šūsnys, Tindžiulis, Žindulis, etc. The majority of surnames among those having surname suffixes were formed with Slavic surname formation formants that have passed over to the Lithuanian language system as well - there were 23% of such surnames (35 surnames), e.g. Ališauskas, Skrandauskas; Gaidamavičius, Kvedaravičius; Andriuškevičius, Vilevičius; Musnickas, Savickas; Čiuvinskas, Vilčinskas ant others. There was almost half this number of surnames with the Lithuanian surname formation formants - 14% (21 surname), e.g. Antanaitis, Čirenas, Adomonis, Mielumas, etc. In the 20th century the surnames in the surroundings of Onuškis were not distinctive by their origin. Thus, even though being on the Latvian border, the Onuškis region has neither turned Slavic, nor succumbed to Germanic influence. Onuškis does not have any region-specific surname formation type or types