The influence of the cults of Saint George and Saint Demetrius on Hungarian personal name giving

Abstract

The case study intends to demonstrate how the databases and name statistics of Hungarian historical anthroponymy built over the last decades can be useful in the study of cults of saints. The paper concentrates on given names, since the effect of saints’ cults on personal name giving can mostly be detected by studying the historical changes, and the geographical and social diversity of the given name stock. The comparison of the two cults is motivated by several reasons. First, from a methodological viewpoint, it makes the evaluation of the measure of the impact more precise. Second, the two saints are linked by several aspects of cult history: both of them are Eastern soldier saints, frequently depicted together. However, their Hungarian cults developed differently: while Saint George became the prototype of soldier and knight saints in Hungary (and throughout Europe as well), the veneration of Saint Demetrius remained limited and was confined to the orthodox areas of the country since the early modern period. This difference can also be revealed in the popularity of the two names in Hungary. The name György ‘George’ has been far more frequent than Demeter ‘Demetrius’ from the beginning and is among the 100 most frequent given names of the whole population today, although its popularity has been decreasing. By contrast, Demeter can be counted as a definitely rare name. Their geographical distribution at the beginning of the 18th century shows the same picture: while the name György was the second most frequent name in the whole population, Demeter was used in the regions habitated mostly by orthodox Romanians and Rusyns.