Personal Names of Livonian Origin in Latvia: Past and Present

The anthroponymic system of Latvian – one of the Baltic languages – contains many borrowed names: anthroponyms of German, Russian, Polish, Swedish, Lithuanian and also Finno-Ugric (Livonian, Estonian, and Finnish) origin. The substratum of the Livonian language can be felt in Latvia also nowadays in all levels of the language. This article deals with the analysis of Latvian personal names of possible Livonian origin (both with historical names known only from ancient documents, as well as with contemporary names). The criteria of determination (phonetic, grammatical and lexical) of possible Finno-Ugrisms in Latvian are discussed. Nowadays, many ancient historical Livonian names are used as Latvian surnames. I list the main popular names of probable Livonian origin according to the registers of the inhabitants of Latvia.