Muslim Names in the Comprehensive Census of the Bosnian Sanjak in 1604.

Abstract

This paper considers Muslim names of Oriental origin in our country. It is based on the original material from the beginning of the 17th century. The register of Muslim names appearing in the Comprehensive defter (census) of the Bosnian Sanjak of 1604 is given here. This source provides various onomastic data. It is comprehensive, i.e. it records individual names, and thus provides abundant material for the research into the field of anthroponymy. Personal Muslim names appearing here are of Arabic, Turkish and Persian origin.

Names of Arabic origin most frequently have the meaning of some character trait. For example, Nasuh - honest, Hasan - handsome, good. Names representing a genitive connection between the word cabd (slave) and one of the names usually attributed to God are quite frequent. For example, Abdurrahman - Slave of the Merciful, Abduldželil - Slave of the Sublime, Abdulkadir - Slave of the Mighty. Names of distinguished personalities from the Islam history are among favourite and most frequent ones. These are: Omer, Ali, Osman, Hasan, and Husejn, as well as the name of Muhamed, the messenger of Islam whose name appears here in its Turkish version - Mehmed. Favourite female names are Hatidža, Aiša and Fatima. Names of Turkish origin glorify courage, toughness and endurance. Animal names are frequent in personam names, which is a reflection of former totemism of Turkish peopels. For example: Kurd - wolf, Arslan - lion. The use of names of birds of prey as personal names by Turks has already been discussed in published papers. Such names are: Sunkur - falcon, Atmadža - hawk, Dogan - falcon. Names of origin most frequently have the meaning of "hero", "brave". For example, Dilaver- brave, Behram- hero. The Persian word "šah" - Emperor,Tzar, often appears combined with some other name, thus making it sound noble. Compounds composed of words of different origin appear in personal names as well. For example, Hodaverdi - Given by God (Pers. - Tur.), Alidžan (Arab. - Pers.), Džanfida - Self- Sacrificing (Pers. - Arab.). The most frequent male names in this defter are: Mustafa, Ali, Hasan, Husejn, Mehmed, Ibrahim, Jusuf, Memi, Ahmed, Osman. The name Abdullah appears only as a patronym. It is stated instead of the father's Christian name. This phenomenon is particularly prominent in city settlements.

Names which are no longer in use in Bosnia and Herzegovina but do appear in surnames are the following: Alidžan, Ališah, Balaban, Behmen, Hubijar, Pirija, Sarija, Sefer, Korkut, Kurt, Kurteš, Pervan, Perviz, Mustedam, Selman, Torlak. Most often they appear in these forms, i.e. without suffixes characteristic of surnames. Comparin~ the list of contemporary Muslim personal names with the one from the 17 C. , we conclude that among the names no longer in use, those of Turkish and Persian origin prevail.