FIRST NAME CHOICES in ZAGREB and SOFIA Johanna Virkkula
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SLAVICA HELSINGIENSIA 44 FIRST NAME CHOICES IN ZAGREB AND SOFIA Johanna Virkkula HELSINKI 2014 SLAVICA HELSINGIENSIA 44 Series editors Tomi Huttunen, Jouko Lindstedt, Ahti Nikunlassi Published by: Department of Modern Languages P.O. Box 24 (Unioninkatu 40 B) 00014 University of Helsinki Finland Copyright © by Johanna Virkkula ISBN 978-951-51-0093-1 (paperback) ISBN 978-951-51-0094-8 (PDF) ISSN-L 0780-3281, ISSN 0780-3281 (Print), ISSN 1799-5779 (Online) Printed by: Unigrafia Summary This study explores reasons for first name choice for children using a survey carried out in two places: Zagreb, the capital of Croatia, and Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria. The outcomes of the analysis are twofold: reasons for name choice in the two communities are explored, and the application of survey methods to studies of name choice is discussed. The theoretical framework of the study is socio-onomastic, or more precisely socio- anthroponomastic, and the work explores boundaries of social intuition. It is argued that parents’ social intuition – based on rules and norms for name choice in their communities that they may not even be consciously aware of – guides them in choices related to namegiving. A survey instrument was used to collect data on naming choices and the data were analysed using both qualitative and quantitative methods. The study explored in detail five themes affecting reasons for name choice. These themes were: tradition and family, international names, aesthetic values and positive meanings, current names and special names. The process of naming is discussed in detail, as are the effects of the parents’ education and the child’s sex on name choice. The Zagreb and Sofia data show significant differences and similarities in these themes and dimensions. The study shows that the differences between the Zagreb and the Sofia data sets are always larger than differences based on more expected demographic factors such as the children’s sex or birth order or the parents’ educational level. These differences are supported by the literature on name choice showing Zagreb and Sofia are substantially different environments in which to name a child. With respect to the reasons for name choice in the data, respondents in both data sets indicated they were most concerned with choosing a name they thought was beautiful. After the beauty of the name, the most frequently mentioned reasons for name choice identified by Zagreb respondents were the meaning of the name, strategies related to national and international positioning, and traditionality of the name. The most frequently cited reasons in the Sofia data set were commemoration of relatives, the meaning of the name, whether the name was hereditary, and similarity of the name to other names in the family. The national and international strategies indicated by the Zagreb respondents are closely related to the recent history of Croatia. The traditional naming patterns referenced by the Sofia respondents – commemoration, hereditary names, names similar in the family – are reproduced through compromise naming and letter-naming. The lack of international naming patterns in Sofia could be connected to the use of the Cyrillic alphabet in Bulgarian and the use of transliteration: The Sofia data has no mentions of internationally difficult names or letters, while Zagreb respondents are concerned with avoiding graphs and phonemes that make Croatian words less portable to other languages. The meaning of a name in the respondents’ answers is not only the etymological or semantic meaning of the name; equally often it is the the associations the parents have, whether those are with a saint, a grandparent, or a narrative that led them to choose it. With all these results in mind, some considerations for further surveys and directions for future research are indicated. Acknowledgements This work has been in progress for a long time; I wish to thank a great many people for help, support and love during my hike towards a PhD. First and foremost I need to thank my mentor, supervisor and advocate Jouko Lindstedt; without you this book would never have been. I am so grateful to have been able to work with you. My second advisor, Laimute Balode, has taught me much more about life, onomastics and Latvian than I ever expected; you have my devoted love and admiration for all time. My advisor for all things statistical, Kimmo Vehkalahti, opened up new worlds of visualising numbers for me - thank you! The English of this book was checked in the final stage by my friend and fellow HYB Diana ben-Aaron. Thank you for your thorough reading! Heartfelt thanks go to my pre-examinors Ankica Čilaš Šimpraga and Ojārs Bušs for the many insightful remarks and suggestions to the manuscript. A great many colleagues and friends are to be thanked for their generous help, especially with my languages: My adopted tetkica Rada Borić, Marko Bušić, Dragana Cvetanović, John Dingley, Željko Jozić, Tatyana Kalkanova, Zdravko Kolev, Kristian Lewis, Mary Murphy, Atina Nihtinen, Jussi Nuorluoto, Tzvetomila Pauly, Andrea Pongrac, Laura Rapo, Maija Sartjärvi, Jasna Šumanovac, Stefan Teodossiev, Sirkku Terävä and Max Wahlström. I also want to thank the Slavonic Library at the National Library of Finland; they have always been extremely helpful. It is a great benefit to have friends with special skills: fortunately I’ve had friend and mathematician Marie Selenius by my side. Marie has also made me a part of her family: special regards to Daniel, my godson. I want to thank Marie's colleague Lazslo Vincze for his invaluable help with Multinominal Logistic Regression. My knowledge of sociology has deepened through discussions with Jarre Parkatti. All mentioned above have helped me with the intellectual work of building this book, as well as spotting errors and false starts. All of the remaining errors are of course my own. Arja Laakso, Terhi Ainiala, Dušica Božović, Helena Lehečková, Aurelija Kaškelevičienė, Izabela Jakubek-Głąb, Jouni Vaahtera, Päivi Saurio and Anna Nylund have been my constant allies in a world where allies are needed. Stefan Taubert is the closest I come to a brother — thank you for sharing your lovely family with us. Last but definitely not least I would like to thank my family: my aunts, uncles, parents-in-law Pirjo-Leena and Markku Sirén and other relatives, who never hid the fact that they thought it great that I'm writing a thesis and closely monitored the news from southeastern Europe 'because our Johanna goes there'. The support of my aunt Ethel (Tette) Sonntag has carried me through many difficult moments. My aunts Eine Ahlberg, Elna Manninen and Maire Sjöblom have shared our joy and sorrow. My cousin Kristina Virtanen once said I always want to know everything about everything, and that has shaped me in many ways. My mother Gunnel Virkkula is the bedrock my world stands on; you have always loved me much more than I could imagine, and I will never be able to love you as much back, so I'll just keep trying to pay it forward. My brave and dear sister Heidi Ahtiainen has always been stronger than I am, and I am so grateful to have her, her beloved children Emil and Ellen and her husband Tero share their lives with me and my family. Finally, I never knew I had so much love to give before Mico and our cherished children Matias and Emma came into my life. Thank you for bringing me such joy and happiness. Thank you! Tack! Kiitos! Hvala! Благодаря! Paldies! Kirkkonummi, August 24th 2014 Johanna Virkkula Contents I. Introduction ........................................................................................... 1 I.1 Theoretical framework .................................................................... 1 I.2 Aims and summary of the study ...................................................... 3 I.3 Note on translation and transliteration ............................................. 7 I.4 Note on respondent confidentiality .................................................. 8 I.5 Specific terms used in the study ....................................................... 9 I.6 Organisation .................................................................................. 10 II. Background ......................................................................................... 12 II.1 Zagreb and Sofia in the 1990s ....................................................... 12 II.1.1 Coping with transition ............................................................. 13 II.1.2 Nationalism and war in Croatia ............................................... 17 II.1.3 Nationalism and name-changing campaigns in Bulgaria.......... 19 II.2 Name legislation in Croatia and Bulgaria ...................................... 21 II.2.1 The Croatian Law on Personal Names ..................................... 21 II.2.2 Bulgarian name laws ............................................................... 24 II.2.3 Legal aspects of naming: concluding remarks ......................... 29 II.3 Onomastic background .................................................................. 34 III. Material and methods .......................................................................... 41 III.1 Data collection .............................................................................. 41 III.1.1 The survey instrument ............................................................. 41 III.1.2 The survey situation ................................................................ 43 III.1.3 Questionnaire design ..............................................................