Nature in the System of Lithuanian Personal Names

The article deals with some tendencies in development of Lithuanian personal names. With reference to the Data base of personal names of Lithuanian citizens (1898–2010), the register of names of newborn citizens of Šiauliai in 1999–2011, and various dictionaries, the author analyzes the place of names derived from words designating natural phenomena (“natural” names) in the system of Lithuanian personal names. The period before the third decade of the 20th century was almost entirely dominated by traditional Christian names. After the reestablishment of Lithuanian independence (1918), old names of Lithuanian and Baltic origin came into use alongside with new Lithuanian names, including “natural” ones. During the last decades of the 20th century foreign names of Christian origin or their variants began to appear, resulting in decreasing of traditional Lithuanian names of Christian origin. However, this tendency, surely due to the globalization processes, had only an insignificant impact on the popularity of old (Baltic) and new Lithuanian names. “Natural” names becoming slightly less popular, it is obvious that as of today the natural component still occupies an important place in the Lithuanian anthroponymic system