Names with Romanic Origin in the Medieval Bulgarian Anthroponymy

Abstract

This article is focused on the anthroponyms of Romanic origin in the Medieval Bulgarian anthroponym system. The problem up to this point is completely unstudied. Its importance proceeds not only from the relatively frequent use of similar anthroponyms, but also from the fact that they can shed additional light on the early stages of language interaction between Slavic and Romanic population in the Balkans as well as on the dark beginning of the Balkan Sprachbund. The article is based on a large number of Latin, Byzantine, Old Slavonic and Middle Bulgarian sources. The anthroponyms are regarded in the context of the influence exerted by the languages of Late Balkan Antiquity on the Balkan anthroponymy and toponymy and in the context of language balkanization of the South-Eastern Slavic vernaculars attested in the Old Slavonic (Bulgarian) and Middle Bulgarian texts. Two important conclusions are drawn: the early South-Eastern Slavic dialects interacted with several Balkan Romanic vernaculars and only some of them belonged to Proto-Romanian and its branches. The others were different from Proto-Romanian local Romanic vernaculars which disappeared in the Middles Ages. The second conclusion refers to the obscure beginning of the Balkan Sprachbund – it has risen in areas in which bi- or even tri-lingual communities shared common normative culture. The anthroponyms presented in the article are one of the manifestations and probably the most visible part of this common normative culture.