Department of Ethnology and Anthropology

Dunja Brozović-Rončević
TRACES OF PAGAN, CHRISTIAN AND ISLAMIC CULTS IN TOPONYMY

Toponyms with religious motivation can be classified according to three different criteria. According to their motivation of origin, toponomastic distribution and the semantics of onomastic stems. According to the first criterion they form four groups: 1. toponyms with pagan pre-Christian and pre-Slavic motivation, 2. toponyms with Slavic pagan motivation, 3. toponyms with Christian motivation, 4. toponyms with Islamic motivation.
According to their toponomastic distribution toponyms can be classified as oronyms, settlement names, microtoponyms and hydronyms, oronyms being the most numerous. According to the meaning of their stems toponyms can be divided into two major groups. Those containing stems with personal semantics and those containing stems with non-personal semantics (denoting objects, rituals and buildings). Both of these categories can be further divided into several subcategories. Every toponym can be classified according to each of these classification systems, e. g. Perunovac is a toponym with Slavic motivation (according to the first classification), an oronym (according to the second classification) and a name with personal semantics (according to the third classification).
Classification has to take into consideration folk etymology and disguised Christian transformation of older toponyms. The comparison of classification systems results in the discovery of some general onomastic patterns and improves our knowledge of Slavic mythology.