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Commemorative aspect of London and Moscow underground-station names containing anthroponyms [Commemorative aspect of London and Moscow underground-station names containing anthroponyms] World of Science. Series: Sociology, Philology, Cultural Studies, 2020, Vol. 11, No. 4. Available at: https://sfk-mn.ru/PDF/19FLSK420.pdf (in Russian).

Commemorative aspect of London and Moscow underground-station names containing anthroponyms

Vostrikova Olga Vladimirivna
Pushkin state Russian language institute, Moscow, Russia
E-mail: o.w.wolke@list.ru
РИНЦ: https://elibrary.ru/author_profile.asp?id=291762

Paymakova Elena Albertovna
People’s friendship university of Russia, Moscow, Russia
E-mail: e.paymakova@gmail.com
РИНЦ: https://www.elibrary.ru/author_profile.asp?id=842582

Abstract. By definition, metro-station names are urbanonyms and therefore can be a subject of a toponymic study. Since commemorativeness is more distinctive of Russian urbanonyms, it is possible to propose a quantitative prevalence of Moscow-metro station-names fixing personalities’ names with a commemorative purpose. To denote the units under study the authors introduce the coinage «metronym» as a working term.

The focus of the paper is on motivation and form of modern London and Moscow underground-station names containing anthroponyms. The names underwent a complex toponymic, etymological, structural-semantic and component analysis. The compiled sample of metronyms didn’t contain the metro-station names which are currently out of use, the eponymic formants of which are names of former owners, pioneering settlers, patron saints, obsolete anthroponyms.

Moscow memorial metronyms predominate: 37 versus 3. Regularities in the formation of London memorial metronyms for a small number of examples have not been identified. With regard to the Moscow metro-station names, there is a certain prevalence of one-word nominations with a transformed topobase using the formant -skaya until the 2000s in time terms (20 versus 18), and territorially – within the Koltsevaya Line (the Circle Line). Since the 1960s the composite nomination has been regularly used for memorial metronyms with an anthroponym component and is more typical of stations remote from the center.

Being administratively selected metronyms fulfill their navigation function and cannot receive arbitrary names uncontrollably. They must correspond to the names of landmark nearby objects. Thus the principle naming feature of metronyms is their metonymy, expressed in the use of already existing toponyms. A typical metonymic name-transfer in the case of metronyms has two stages: the creation of a toponym through an appellative / proper name metonymic transfer and the creation of a metronym through a metonymic transfer of the coined toponym. Eventually, in their structure and composition metro-station names can fully correspond to the transferred toponyms or have various types of formal transformations. Commemorative motivation is reflected in official, scientific and popular sources, mainly concerning the nominations transformed with the help of reduction of component words and suffixation (in case of Moscow metronyms).

The memorial potential of metro-station names as a whole corresponds to the general picture of toponymy with anthroponymic formants. The number of memorial metronyms can be explained by the commemorative coventions of the national axiosphere and their changes. The names of the Moscow underground stations are used for this purpose much more often than the names of the London underground stations, the navigation function of which is paramount and practically the only one.

Keywords: anthroponym; commemorative/memorial function; eponym; metonymic place-naming; motivation; navigational function; toponymic basis; underground; urbanonym

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