Names of Emigrant Children with Lithuanian Letters with Diacritics in Major Emigration Countries from Lithuania in 1991–2020

Abstract

A study of the names of Lithuanian emigrants registered in the UK, Ireland, Norway and Germany has found that children usually have popular Lithuanian names that, however, do not contain Lithuanian letters with diacritics. Personal names with Lithuanian letters with diacritics are more typical of girls: most of them in Norway, where they account for a third of the names of girls in this country, less – in Ireland and the UK, and the least – in Germany. Boys' names with Lithuanian letters with diacritics are very rare: in Norway they do not reach even the 5 % of the studied names, in other countries they are even rarer. The names are usually registered in the standard Lithuanian forms, including diacritics. This suggests that parents care about the forms of children's names. When names are registered without Lithuanian letters with diacritics (writing a, e, u, s, z, dz instead), the letter -ė is most often missing (the most common position is the endings of girls' names, cf. Smilte). Other letters are missing much less frequently. It is possible that this situation reflects common Lithuanian tendencies for the use of names with Lithuanian letters with diacritics. In addition, influence of Lithuanian in registering names of other languages is also found (cf. Charlottė, with the Lithuanian letter -ė), as well as names of other languages registered with Lithuanian letters with diacritics, cf. Žasmin.