Notes on the origin of the name Simon of Keza
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.18349/MagyarNyelv.2020.3.316Keywords:
chronicler from the Árpád-age, Simon of Keza, historical toponymy, etymology of toponyms, folk etymology, contact with German, historical geographyAbstract
In this paper my aim is to show a parallelism between the historical forms of three known toponyms Keza from medieval Hungary in order to find their etymological origins. Each one of these three places was referred to in a former talk as the birthplace of the chronicler, Simon of Keza. This toponym was considered to be a former personal name, which became a place name due to possession. I found that the etymon could be a now dialectal word kësza ‘container made of leather’, a word of Turkic or Persian origin. There is no trace of a person who could possibly be the possessor concerned. The toponym Ginza in Fejér County has been suggested as that of one of the settlements formerly called Keza. The change has been explained as due to German settlers, but Csánki’s explanation is wrong, whether or not the change was really caused by language contact. However, I did not find any exact clues for migration in the suggested time period. On the other hand, the historical forms can be explained from Hungarian. The folk etymological effect of the place name Kanizsa could also have caused changes.
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