Towards a History of Basque Anthroponymy

Abstract

In this paper, a short history of Basque anthroponymy is made, starting from Antiquity and going through the Roman period, the Middle Ages, the Modern Age and the Contemporary Age. For each of these periods, the stock of the most frequent person names is presented, by synthesizing a variety of works by other authors, who in turn depend on the kind of sources that we have for each period. As in other parts of Europe, an autochthonous repertoire of anthroponyms dominates until the 11^th century, either of Aquitanian/Basque etymology or borrowed (mainly from Romance), but deep-rooted in the Basque-speaking areas and particularly in the Kingdom of Pamplona.

From the 11^th century, the centralizing reforms undertaken by the Catholic Church brought about a gradual substitution of those ancient person names by some others taken from saints, evangelists, characters of the New Testament, a tendency brought to the extreme by the previsions fostered by the Council of Trent. However, as any other European language, Basque developed vernacular versions of these names, as well as an ample array of hypocoristic variants, in which the autochtonous processes of the language such as suffixation, palatalization, etc., are profusely employed.

As against some previous accounts of Basque anthroponymy, which have focused exclusively on the analysis of separate anthroponymic units (basically idionyms and patronyms), this paper aims at a global description of the anthroponymic system, considering also social aspects like the development of naming structures as a whole (e.g. idionym + patronym + toponym), and the motivation for giving children particular names (according to relatives, ancestors, patron saints, calendars…).